The List
by Clear Plastic
Summary: When a sixty-year-old Susan realizes she is about to die, she makes a list of things to do before she leaves this world. She learns a few lessons about love along the way, and finally confronts her past. *COMPLETE*
1. The List

**Author's Note: **A new one. Might be multichaptered if you guys... REVIEW! :)

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'_All endings are also beginnings. We just didn't know it at the time.'  
**Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet In Heaven**_

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This story begins with an old woman, about sixty years old, who is standing by the sidewalk in the frigid January air.

She is wearing an old, worn coat, and ragged gloves. The gloved hands tightly grips a shiny plastic shopping bag full of groceries to last the entire month. Whenever she exhales, mist billows out from her wasted lips, once plump and red. Her eyes blink, and they are a brilliant blue, dazzling even in her aged state. Her hair, once lustrous and the most beautiful color of ebony, is now lifeless and had strands of white mixing with black. Her eyes dart left and right.

You may ask: who is this old woman? And what exactly is she so important?

An old woman standing by the sidewalk may not seem like a very important thing, but this old woman is special.

She is special, for she was once a queen.

She is special, for she is dying.

Her breaths are numbered.

Her heart beats are coming to a close.

And she knows it.

She is Susan Pevensie.

The old woman crosses the road, concentrating on putting each exhausted foot in front of the other, and she makes a silent vow to herself to never step outside again. Her small apartment is much more comfortable.

Susan approaches a small building, where her apartment is. It is a run down brick building, with peeling paint and some shattered windows. The roof is missing many tiles, and the building is about five stories high. This old woman lives on the third level, in room 3B. She is the only one living on that level, and she is relieved.

She walks up the cement stairs leading to the apartment, and her joints protest weakly. The plastic bag weighs her down. Her heart burns.

The lobby of the building is in a dismal condition, with the fan nearly ripped off the ceiling, and the plaster on the ceiling falling down in flakes. There is nothing but a small table and a worn moth carpet on the hard, wooden floor. Stairs are to her right. There is no one there.

This is the part Susan dreads the most: the stairs. Three flights of stairs for her is like running ten miles for us. She remembers a time when she was young and healthy, but that time is long gone. Its been so long since she last ran, or even jumped.

She struggles, and eventually reaches the third floor. Her apartment door is slightly ajar. The old woman had no fear of robbery. She has nothing even remotely useful to steal. All her jewelry were pawned long ago in a desperate bid for more money.

Susan Pevensie has no job.

She pushes open the door with her shoulder, further jiggling the tarnished 3B sign on the door, which was already loosened.

She enters the apartment, and she inhales the musty scent of it, the smell of decay and mothballs. She sets the plastic bag down on the floor, deciding to remove its contents later on. Now, she rests.

She goes to her room. It's a dingy room, with a small bed and a nightstand beside it. There are no pictures, no carpets, no curtains.

Susan opens the topmost drawer of the nightstand and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. She removes one and places it between her trembling lips. She takes out a lighter from her coat pocket and lights it. It ignites, and the woman immediately relaxes.

She moves to her living room, and switches on a old television set she inherited a long time ago. It is black and white, and Susan stares unseeingly at the moving figures, her eyes unfocused. She inhales, and the smoke enters her lungs.

She coughs violently, as she always does. She lifts up her hand to cup her mouth, still hacking.

When she looks at her hand, it is speckled with red.

Blood.

This isn't the first time.

You may think it is strange that Susan, this old woman, didn't go to the hospital immediately to get some sort of treatment. The truth was, she didn't want to.

She was tired of suffering.

She was tired of being alone.

She wanted out.

And this was like a free ticket to the exit.

So, the cigarette stays firmly between her lips. The smoke stings her eyes, and she closes them. There she lay, slumped in an armchair, ready to give up.

What else did she have in this world, anyway?

No friends, no family, no one.

But for some reason, the old her resists.

Susan opens her eyes again, and the smoke had blurred her vision. She remembers back then, when she was a strong young woman. Never in her life would she have imagined that she would go like this.

She remembered that when she was young, she had always imagined that she would die a noble death, maybe dying for someone else, or when she was saving someone. And yet, here she was, pushing herself further down the road to the Shadow lands.

She picks herself up from the lumpy armchair, and walks towards the kitchen, just a few steps away. She unloads the grocery bag. A bottle of brandy, some butter, two apples, a pack of raw mutton, a stick of butter, and even a toilet brush.

While she is placing the groceries in her tiny refrigerator, she thinks again.

She has had so many regrets in her life.

So many things she wishes desperately that she could turn back the clock, and start all over. To write over anything wrong she had said, she had done, she had thought.

With a resigned resolution, she decides that if she going she might as well go the right way. And for the first time in decades, she feels a spark of life. A ghost of her former self.

She hobbles over back to her room and scrabbles around in the nightstand for any paper or pen. She finds a raggedy piece of yellow paper and a small pencil.

Susan places the pencil on the paper shakily. And she begins to write.

Her words are hesitant at first, and very messy. It's been a long time since she last wrote anything, or even held a pen.

Her words come faster and faster.

Then, on top of the list, she writes: _List of Things To Say or Do Before I Die._

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**Susan Is Five**

Susan rushed down the stairs on the morning of her birthday. She giggled excitedly, thinking of the presents she might receive. Maybe a puzzle? Or even a board game she can play with Peter? She hurried down the stairs, and saw nothing.

No cake.

She surveyed her surroundings, disbelieving. Yes, the house isn't even decorated. No balloons, no ribbons, no party hats. Her eyes stung, and she ran back up the stairs, burrowed under her bed sheets and pretended to be asleep.

Two hours later, her mother was helping her button up her school uniform. She stayed silent, holding back her tears. Her mother asked her what was wrong, and she simply shook her head.

Peter greeted her in his own school uniform, and they both walked hand in hand to preschool, with their mother behind. Peter didn't mention her birthday at all, and now Susan doubted that he remembered.

For the whole day she was moody and gloomy. Even when her best friend, Katie offered her a gummy worm, she refused. Instead, she simply slumped over her small desk and moped.

After her mother fetched her and Peter back from school, she said that she was going out for a few moments and would be right back.

Peter and Susan were the only ones in the house.

Peter closed himself in his room and said that he was doing something, and that she had better keep out.

Susan wandered around the house, crying, her nose running. What did she do? Was she too naughty? Did she break something? Were her parents mad at her? So, Susan simply lay down on a couch and slept.

'SURPRISE!'

Susan's eyes snapped open. All her family members were there, from Grandpa Jenkins to little Lucy, her gummy smile. All of them wore a smile on their faces. Her eyes widened in delight when she saw the huge chocolate cake her father was carrying, and the multitude of presents waiting for her.

Later that night, when her stomach is full of cake and she is surrounded by her new birthday gifts, Susan cannot help but think that she is the luckiest girl on earth.

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**Author's Note: **Review to tell me if I should continue!! :)

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	2. Archery

**Author's Note: **Keep in mind that when Susan is sixty, it would be 1988. Or somewhere around that.

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It takes Susan another two days before she can even summon up the strength to go out again, let alone complete anything on the list.

_What was I thinking?_ Susan despairs, holding the now crumpled piece of paper in her hands. _As if I could ever complete anything on this list._

She is sitting in her bed, wearing a thin nightgown. It is morning, and Susan has the urge to look at the list again. Her eyes scroll down, and rests on Number 7. She takes a long look at it, and a deep longing rises inside her. Even if the others seemed near impossible, at least Number 7 seemed doable.

She drags herself out of bed, joints creaking. She looks at the clock and sees that it is eight-forty-three in the morning. She eats a small piece of bread, and goes for a shower.

While the water is cascading down her body, she tries not to notice the white strands of hair slowly disengaging from her scalp. She tries not to notice her growing waistline, and her dry, scaly skin.

Twenty minutes later, she is ready. She steps out of her apartment, and soon she is outside. She shivers involuntarily, the breeze tugging at her still damp hair.

She walks, and she think about Number 7.

_7. Learn to shoot again, _was what she had written.

She tries to remember anywhere with an archery ground, and she recalls that someone recently built one in a shopping centre. She shudders, and remembers a time when archery was in the wide open grounds.

The more she walks, the more uncertain she feels.

The great, modern building looms in front of her. Susan can't remember the name of this shopping centre. Its walls are a bright yellow, and Susan thinks that it is too garish. A couple of teenagers pass by, heading towards she mall. The girls are wearing skimpy clothes, even in the bitter cold. Susan shakes her head, and walks onward towards the glass doors.

The glass doors open automatically, and it takes Susan a moment to realize that they are supposed to operate that way. She wonders just how long she had been cut off from the rest of the world.

Music is blaring out of somewhere in the shopping mall. It is about seven stories tall, and Susan gawps. There is a large, obviously fake Christmas tree in the middle of the concourse, and plenty of people are milling around it, admiring.

Susan doesn't know where to go next.

She feels rather foolish, in her worn coat and too-tight pants, standing in a shopping mall. Her toes curl, and she sees a sign saying _Information Counter._ She hurries over. There is a young man behind the desk.

'May I help you?' he asks cordially, smiling.

'Archery?' is all Susan asks, and she curses herself inwardly for her inability to converse properly. She hasn't properly spoken to anyone in two decades, ever since the death of her husband. But that's another story, one that will be revealed to you later.

'Third floor. Use the elevator and turn left. You can't miss it. Have a nice day.'

Susan bobs her gray head, and she walks towards the elevators with a pit in her stomach. The first and only time she ever got on one was when her husband and her had went out for a Valentine's Day dinner. Even then she had been terrified. Her sentiments had not changed.

Even worse, it was glass.

She gulps, and presses a button. It lights up, and Susan waits. With every second, she feel more and more nervous. With a _ping!_, the elevator doors open, and there are two other people inside, both looking rather bored. The surrounding walls are glass. She steps inside, shaking.

The metal doors close, and Susan has and overwhelming sense of claustrophobia. Her mind swirls. Susan's fingers clench, and she feels the other two give her odd glances. The elevator gives a lurch, and they are off.

Susan clenches her eyes shut. When she opens her eyes again, she realizes that she is now at the topmost floor. The elevator doors open, and the two people shuffle off. Susan reaches out a shaky finger and presses the button '3'. The elevator descends.

After a few minutes, Susan doesn't feel nearly as scared as before. She is at the third floor now, and she steps off, readjusting her coat, and firmly patting the outline of her purse in her coat. She turns left, and sure enough, there it is. She couldn't have missed it anyway. There is a sign outside, which flashes almost obnoxiously, taunting her.

She steps in. The walls are white. Opposite of her are the targets. The people here are mostly teenagers, having a blast. Susan feels increasingly smaller, and she walks up to the counter, and requests ten arrows. She figures that if she still couldn't do it today, she might as well come back again tomorrow.

A few minutes later, she is standing at the very last lane, and ten brightly colored plastic arrows in tow. Her heart beats faster. The bow is also plastic, but thankfully the right size.

She stands in front of one target. The bulls eye is red. She picks up one arrow, and slowly positions it. She can feel plenty of people turning around to watch her, and she realizes how odd it must be, for a woman her age to be indulging in such petty activities normally reserved for youngsters.

She hears someone snicker, and her arms sweat. She raises the bow, and all she can see is the red dot in the middle of the circle target, some ten metres away. She stretches the string. The bow feels almost unbearably comfortable in her hands, and so very familiar.

She repositions her feet. Her fingers strain against the hard plastic, and for a moment she remembers the bow and arrow Father Christmas a lifetime ago, and her heart aches. Then, she releases the arrow.

The arrow whizzes forward, hits dead centre.

Susan's jaw drops, and so do many others.

Someone claps, and many others follow. Susan gives an embarrassed smile, and feels so very alive right then. Her entire being sang at the thought of shooting again, and she quickly aligns another arrow. She aims.

She shoots.

And this one split her first one in half.

'Whoa!' someone exclaims.

She quickly shoots, and aims. Centre.

'Can you teach me how?' a little girl scurries up to her, eyes beseeching. Her mother quietly reprimands her, pulling her away.

'No, it's okay.' Susan says awkwardly. 'I can teach you.' The little girl squeals with delight, and proffers her own bow and arrow. Susan pulls her over.

For the next thirty minutes, she tells her everything she knows, from where your fingers should be to how your feet should be positioned. At the end of her impromptu lesson, the girl can shoot remarkably well.

Susan smiles, and the girl smiles back. It isn't until then that Susan recalls just how much she loves little children.

This little girl, coincidentally named Lucy, marvels at how a simple smile can light up this old lady's face so much.

This is how Susan spends the rest of the morning, shooting until her fingers ache. She needed more than ten arrows, and now her purse is empty. But as she walks back home, grin on her face, she thinks that it was worth every single cent she had.

That night, her hands buzz. She longs to have the bow and arrow in her hands again. When she is trying to sleep, Susan realizes that she has gotten a part of herself back again.

She is alive once more. Her soul is alive, though her body is slowly failing her, and Susan knows that she doesn't have much time left.

Susan takes The List out again, and clumsily puts a cross on the number 7.

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**Susan Is Twelve**

It was a dark night, and Susan was huddled under her bed sheets, her whole body was trembling and her eyes scrunched shut tightly. So tightly, it was hurting her. Her whole body was drenched with cold sweat.

Susan was scared to death.

She was scared of the possibility that a bomb might drop on her home at any second. The entire house is quiet. She chanced a look at the window and she winced. There wasn't anything, of course.

Susan turned over in bed, and pulled her knees closer to her chest. The silence continued, and Susan kept expecting the terrible, terrible sound of a bomb exploding, people screaming, buildings falling, windows shattering.

Her father had gone to fight in this very war.

Her entire being revolted at the idea of a war. Such senseless things: why did people keep starting them? Nothing good ever came out of them. Broken families, dead siblings, lost loved ones… that was the result.

Susan abruptly made a decision. She crept out of bed, and opened her bedroom door. It didn't make a sound. Susan stepped out, her soft bunny slippers muffling her footsteps. She quickly made her way over to another room.

She pushed the door open and saw Lucy sitting upright in her bed, looking intently out of her own window. She jumped when she heard her door swing open, and relaxed when she saw Susan's silhouette in the dark.

'Lucy,' Susan whispered, and she slinked into bed with Lucy. She hugged her little sister and found that she was trembling too. She didn't need to ask why.

'You couldn't sleep too?' Lucy said, and she burrowed her soft head into Susan's shoulder.

'Not a wink,' Susan admitted, and she rested her chin against her head.

'Thanks for coming over, Su,' Lucy whispered into Susan's chest, and she smiled.

'No problem.'

'I think I can sleep now.' Lucy yawned, and her eyes closed shut. Her breaths come slower and steadier. Susan waited until Lucy was properly asleep, then she only closed her own eyes.

She fell asleep, younger sister protectively in her arms.

Little did she know that almost the same thing she was doing now was happening next door, where Peter and Edmund slept.

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**Author's Note: **Hope ya liked it! REVIEW, people!


	3. Nanny

_'Strangers are just family you have yet to come to know.'  
_**Anonymous**

--

It's been a week since Susan started shooting again. She still goes there every day, for three solid hours, and now her poor hands are covered with blisters, but she bears these blisters like a trophy.

But even so, Susan doesn't know what to do next.

Every time she takes a weary glance at the torn list, she sighs. The tasks she listed now seem much to hard to do, especially now that her health is slowly ebbing away into nothing.

She feels her lungs getting weaker and weaker with every breath she takes, and they feel as if they could collapse at any moment now.

She is eating lunch now, a miserable meal of cheap ham and bread. She wonders, and she takes each munch, just when she will die.

She might die when she is on a train, or maybe when she is walking in the streets, or even when she is bathing. Her body might never be found, and Susan is almost completely sure that no one will attend her funeral. She isn't even sure if she will _have _a funeral. All the people she ever cared for had either left her, or that she had left them.

Susan closed her eyes, and she remembered her late husband.

--

Every life has a true-love snapshot. For Susan, it happened exactly forty years ago. She can remember that day so clearly. Even as she sits in her dimly lit apartment, dust entering her lungs, she can feel the warmth of the breezes, the sound of children laughing, dogs barking, sun shining.

Susan was in a park, basking in the warm sunshine, buttering her skin. She was wearing an orange summer dress, and she was lying down, hands behind her head, looking at the waving leaves on the oak trees. Her feet were bare, and she was alone.

Susan remembered how angry she was then. Lucy had been bothering her about Narnia, that made-up children's land that her overactive imagination had cooked up. Her blood was boiling, and it made her extremely uncomfortable.

Susan had been frowning. She was so busy being angry that she didn't hear the distinct rustle of leaves and shoes against bark. Her knees crossed and uncrossed.

And then an acorn fell down on top of her head.

She looked up, and that was the snap-shot moment. A boy about her age was on the very top of the tree she was currently lying under. Susan supposed that he was never the type of boy she would notice but what caught her attention was the look of pure, boyish joy as he found himself on top of that tree, looking down at the vast earth.

For the rest of his life, when Susan thought of him, she would remember this very day, and the way his eyes lighted up when he smiled, and she would feel the same arterial burst of pure love.

Susan had stood up, brushed some stray grass off her orange dress, and yelled, 'Hey you!' and the boy had glanced downwards.

There was no looking back now.

--

Susan opens her eyes again, and her tear ducts threaten to burst. It takes all of her willpower not to let a single tear fall.

She automatically reaches for the crumpled piece of paper in her pocket, and pulls it out yet again. It is extremely battered now, and with several tears at the corners.

Her eyes flicker down, and she smiles.

She had just found her next task.

_3. Get a proper job._

--

Susan only had a very brief job in her entire sixty years: a very short stint as a kindergarten teacher. It wasn't lucrative, but Susan loved taking care of little children and teaching them their ABCs. Sure, it could be frustrating but it was well worth it.

After she had married her husband, there really was no need for an extra job. Susan became a stay-at-home wife, and her husband became the breadwinner of the household.

Susan is flipping furiously through the classifieds section of a newspaper from almost two months ago. She searches for any job that might be suitable for someone her age.

There is everything from dog walkers to manicurists, from newspaper boys to accountants. But there is nothing there that Susan might like to do. She flips a few more pages, disheartened, and big block letters catch her eye. She leans in closer, hoping.

_Bingo._

--

Several minutes later, Susan is outside on the bustling London streets, hands firmly jammed into her pockets to keep out the cold, though the various holes aren't doing much. Her teeth chatter and her eyebrows feel slightly frozen. People pass by her now and then.

Susan reaches into her pocket and she takes out the little torn piece of newspaper that contains the address of the house she is currently looking for.

_Just a few more houses…_

Susan walks forth a bit more and stops in front of number sixty-three. It looks identical to the rest of the houses next to it, except for a Christmas wreath on it's door. Susan is vaguely surprised by this: she hadn't noticed Christmas pass by, and tries to remember what she was doing that night.

Her fingers presses the doorbell firmly and Susan can hear it ding from the outside, a cheery tune.

'Coming!' a voice calls, and Susan hears footsteps thumping.

Her heart beats quicker, and she fervently wishes that she will get this job.

The door opens, and a little girl is standing there, mouth wide open. A very familiar looking girl.

'You're that woman from the archery centre!' the girl exclaims excitedly.

_Oh, yes. _

Susan smiles gently at her, and she leads Susan in enthusiastically, pulling at her sleeves. 'How did you know where I lived?' the girl asks. The living-room is extremely clean, and nicely furnished. There is a merry fire burning in the fireplace and Susan is immediately warmed. She wipes her muddy boots on the welcome mat, and ventures in apprehensively.

'I came to apply for the nanny position.' Susan tells her, and looks around for a sign of the girls' mother.

'You want to be my nanny?' the girl squeals, and bounces.

'Lucy dear, who is it?' a woman walks down the stairs.

_Lucy, _Susan thinks with a jolt.

'Mummy! This woman wants to be my nanny!'

Susan summons up a weak smile. Lucy's mother looks to be around forty, and her brown hair is shoulder length. Even so, she looks extremely tired, and there are purple bags under her sunken eyes.

'Thank God. We've been waiting for over two months now.' the woman sighs. 'I can't thank you enough.'

'What? I mean-- don't you want to interview me first?' Susan asks foolishly, feeling rather confused.

'I need all the help I can get right now. I'm working two jobs.' the woman tells her, exhausted, and she leads Susan to the comfy armchairs by the fireplace. She sits down awkwardly and readjusts her coat, wishing that she had worn something less holey and grimy.

'What's your name?' the woman asks. 'I'm Katie Rice, and this little thing here is Lucy.' she fondly pats her daughter's identical brown hair.

For some reason, Katie Rice rings a small bell in her head. She blinks, and answers, 'Susan. Susan Pevensie.'

Katie blinks. 'Mrs. Pevensie?'

No one has called her that in over forty years.

'Your name seems rather familiar.' Katie scratches her head, and Lucy taps her foot impatiently.

Susan could say the same, but she didn't. She wracks her mind vigorously, trying to remember where she remembers the name from.

And then she gets it.

'Little Katie.' she whispers, and her hands clutch her heart. It was too much of a coincidence.

Katie's eyes widen, comprehension dawning.

'Did-- did you teach at kindergarten in 1948?' the woman asks excitedly.

Susan nods her head. Her minds swirls, and she remembers Katie Rice as a pudgy kid, with curly brown hair and a toothy smile. She had always liked her.

'What a coincidence,' Katie exhales, and slumps down in her armchair. 'Hello then, Mrs. Pevensie.'

Susan cannot help but smile.

'So, when will I start working?'

--

Susan and Lucy are walking, hand in hand, heading towards a park. Lucy is gabbling away, and Susan is struck by how alike this Lucy and her Lucy is. Both are sunny, cheery, and they never seemed to shut their mouths.

Crossing the street, Susan almost feels like an older sister again.

'--and last week, Franny told me my teddy bears were stupid! I don't like her at all. Her dolls are stupid, not my teddies.' Lucy says indignantly, and looks up at her new nanny.

'Hmm?' Susan glances down.

'You weren't listening to a single word I was saying, weren't you, Mrs. Pevensie?' Lucy pouts for a moment, and immediately brightens up when she sees the faint outline of trees in the distance. 'There it is!'

A breeze flutters by. A few days ago, Susan would've shivered violently. Now, with Lucy's hand in her own, she doesn't feel quite so cold anymore.

Lucy lets go and rushes off, squealing towards a pair of swings hanging rather dolefully side by side. The park is rather empty.'There's the slide! And the swings! Oh, push me, pretty please?' she begs.

Susan laughs. 'Okay, then.'

Lucy runs up to a vacant swing. It is a bright purple, and made of hard plastic. Lucy lifts herself up on it, and she kicks her legs in midair. Susan positions herself behind Lucy, and gives her a small push.

'Higher, higher!'

Susan pushes harder, and marvels at how delighted Lucy looks right now, as she launches into the sky. She reaches out a hand, and from the angle Susan was looking, it almost looks as if she is touching the sky, reaching out to the heavens. Her golden hair flies, and it shines in the sunlight. Her joyful laughter permeates the air, and she realizes just then how long she has not heard the innocent joy of little children. She has forgotten just how healing their laughter can be.

Susan grins and pushes Lucy harder, and reveling in the fact that she was living her life again.

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**Author's Note: **I know you're thinking about reviewing. DO IT. I'll make both of us happy. I'll be encouraged, and you will be satisfied with more frequent updates from me!! How about that? Seems like a pretty good compromise, doesn't it?

SO JUST DO IT! Like Nike! :D


	4. Robert Downley

'It takes a brave person to apologize and admit that you were wrong.'  
**Anonymous**

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Susan has been taking care of Lucy for three days now. In those three days, Susan learns a lot about her.

She learns that Lucy hates to be alone, loves swings, adores her mother and abhors spiders. She learns that Lucy is a friendly girl, who befriends people in the blink of an eyes. She learns that Lucy is identical to her own Lucy.

It almost feels as though she has her back again, and Susan takes comfort in the fact. She even tells Lucy about the list, though she is confused by this.

'Why would you want a list of things to do? Like a grocery lists? I'm good at those.' she says proudly. Susan thinks that it is best that she doesn't tell her that she is fast dying.

And she has only completed two things on her list.

Susan is warming up some milk for Lucy now, in Katie Rice's house. She had barely seen Lucy's mother in the past few days, she simply flits in and out of the house like a butterfly, occasionally pausing to give her daughter a fleeting kiss on her head.

Susan wishes that she would realize just how much her daughter loves her, and needs her. But she knows she cannot correct all the wrongs on this earth.

The small pot on the hob bubbles merrily, and Susan removes the list from her pocket. She carries it around with her almost everywhere now, and the list has been opened up so often that Susan had recopied it, onto a newer piece of paper.

She feels as though she is being drawn to number 5 on the list. Her heart thumps wildly. Can she do it?

With an abrupt resolution, she decides of number 5.

_5. Find Robert Downley and apologize._

--

Robert Downley.

She can remember this day very well too. It is one of those days that will forever be imprinted onto her memory. It was the day she finally stopped believing in Narnia. She recalls the flurry of the train station. She had been so very disorientated at finding herself back at the train station. The kiss still lingered on her lips and she had touched them so frequently that day that they were sore by night.

The train doors opened, and there he was. The geek. 'Aren't you coming, Phyllis?' he asked tentatively, peering out from behind his thick glasses. Susan said nothing. Instead, she numbly picked up her school trunk and stepped inside the train compartment, the boy conveniently behind her.

All three of her siblings wore equal expressions of shock on their faces.

Edmund said something, but Susan didn't hear it. She was still lost in a world where animals talked, Lions were revered and the sky was always clear. Her tears threatened to spill out.

The boy had noticed this.

'Do you need a tissue of some sort, Phyllis?' he asked her.

'No, I don't!' Susan suddenly lashed out. The entire compartment went silent. 'Just leave me alone.' she turned around again, and stood rigidly. The boy silently shuffled away. Peter, Edmund and Lucy all looked at her warily. Susan had even shocked herself but she couldn't bring herself to apologize.

He never spoke to her again.

Sure, she saw him almost everyday, at the train station. She had even come to learn, by staring at his name tag, that he was called Robert.

Susan had regretted that day ever since. The guilt ate at her, but she had always thought that there was nothing else she could do. So the days passed, both of them graduated, and went their separate ways.

A few years later, when she was drinking her coffee and eating breakfast with her husband, she stumbled upon an article, 'Woman Killed In Car Crash'. For some reason, she was drawn to this article and began to read with morbid curiosity. There was a picture, captioned, 'Robert Downley, the husband, grieves'.

She looked closer at the grainy photograph. It showed a man with a tear-streaked face, and all-too-familiar round spectacles, with rather bad acne.

It's him.

--

Back in Lucy's home, Susan is pierced by another stab of regret as she remembers how harsh she was with him. He had simply wanted to comfort her? What was wrong with her?

Susan thinks that he is probably the same age as she is now. She is struck by sudden curiosity to see how this man had turned out. She had lost all contact with her old friends, and she hadn't bothered to keep in touch. She deeply wishes that she had, though. It would've made the years after the train crash if she had a close friend nearby to comfort her.

The fact that he was rather well-known rather made her task easier.

The real problem was this: would he accept her apology?

--

Susan poured the warm broth into a mug, and carried it to the living room. Lucy was sitting, loose-limbed in a chair, watching television with a sleepy expression on her face.

'Here's your milk, dearie.' Susan fondles Lucy's hair as she gulps the milk down, and when she is finished there is a milk mustache around her mouth.

'I need to do something tomorrow.' Susan says, and she stands up. It is nine and nearly time for her to go home. She is certain that Katie Rice is coming home. 'Would you like to come?'

'Yes, oh yes!' Lucy immediately perks up.

Outside, she hears the thump of a slammed car door, and the jingle of keys. Susan sighs, and goes to get her purse.

'Mommy!' Lucy squeals, and jumps up from her chair, and into the hallway to greet her mother like she has done for the past few years. Katie Rice stumbles in, carrying large stacks of papers. Susan gives her a little nod. She hears squeals of laughter behind her, and she cannot help but smile. Susan leaves the house, and the crisp winter air greets her.

While she walks home, she marvels at the eternal bond between mother and child.

Then she remembers her own child.

--

The baby was a he.

It was a cold, winter night, in 1952. Susan and her husband had rushed to the nearest and the cheapest hospital in vicinity. This memory is a haze of bright lights and blue blanket.

She named him Joseph.

He was a lively baby, and he was always kicking his little legs in the air, crying and screwing up his eyes. Susan remembers how she used to dote on him, never leaving the side of his crib.

His hair was a chestnut brown and her husband had told Susan that he had her eyes. They were the same azure color, so blue they seemed almost fluorescent. Her life was perfect after little Joseph was born, and she even believed that she might properly get over the train crash.

Then it all changed.

Joseph got a cold. It wasn't serious, not a first. He started coughing violently in the night, so hard that sometimes his face would turn blue. Susan would fly into a flurry of panic, and those nights usually ended with her husband driving her to the hospital and maybe even spending a night there.

His cold got worse, and it invaded his lungs.

Susan could practically feel his life ebbing away, but there was nothing she could do about it. All she could do was watch as Joseph slowly slip away. Of course her husband had been there for her, but it was still excruciating. Joseph cried almost constantly now.

He died a months later, of pneumonia.

Joseph was only six months old.

--

Susan stops abruptly while walking, and her heart gives a dull ache. Someone bumps into her from behind and shouts, 'Keep moving, old lady!'

Susan hurries away, blinking her eyes rapidly. Her mind wanders, and her legs carry her. A few minutes later, she realizes that her legs have brought her to _Oak Cemetery. _She is standing outside the black gates, staring in. She has an unrelenting urge to run away.

She hasn't been in a cemetery for three decades.

The tombstones inside seem so very grim. Dark, gray slabs of stone, planted haphazardly on the ground. Some of them have crumbled, some of them look brand new and the inscriptions are still clear. Grass grows everywhere. A tombstone nearby her has a large bunch of roses before it.

Susan thinks of the numerous tombstones she has visited in the course of her life.

She runs away, hair loosening from her clumsy bun.

She couldn't face those graves yet.

Not now.

--

The next day is progressively warmer. She sun shines brighter, and the skies are less gray. Spring was almost here.

Susan hastily gets out of bed, and performs the usual morning ablutions. She forgoes her drab old coat now, and instead puts on a long-sleeved shirt and too-tight jeans.

Outside, the sun shines cheerily, not the weak sun she has seen for the past two months. On the streets, no one else is wearing their winter coats; instead there are people outside, lying down in nearby parks, simply basking in the sunshine.

She reaches Lucy's home, and there she is, sitting down in front of the door, waiting for her. She brightens up when she sees Susan and bounces over. 'Are we going to go on that mission today?'

'It isn't much of a mission, I just want to find someone.' Susan smiled, and led her inside. 'Go get your Barbie Doll backpack. Do you want any snacks, honey?'

'Oreo cookies!' she calls, and rushes upstairs to her bedroom.

In twenty minutes, everything is ready. When Susan is tying Lucy's shoes, she suddenly realizes that she doesn't even know if he is dead or alive. She guesses that the first thing she should do now is look in the telephone book.

'Hold on, Lucy.' she hurries in, and brings out the large, yellow telephone book. 'Look for Robert Downley.' Susan tells Lucy, and she happily complies. Susan thinks that she might as well just get his phone number first.

They flip to the 'D's, and Susan runs her finger down the page. She highly doubts that Lucy can read properly yet but she lets her help anyway.

_Dempsey, Patrick…_

_Dentol, Mark…_

_Diaz, Cameron…_

_Dickens, Charles…_

_Downley, Robert…_

Susan smiles.

--

A few minutes later, she is standing by the telephone, fiddling with the cord. Lucy is by her side, persuading her to call.

'Just do it, Mrs. Pevensie!' she says, and proceeds to punch the number it.

'Wait!' Susan stops her. 'It's just that… I don't know what to say.' Well, what _did_ you say to a sixty-year-old man whom you haven't seen in forty years? They didn't even know each other very well. And the only thing Susan wanted to do was to apologize.

For some reason, saying it over the telephone didn't seem very official.

Susan thinks of the address listed below Robert Downley's telephone number.

She puts the phone down on its cradle. 'I think that I might want to visit someone now, Lucy.'

--

It doesn't take long for them to find the house. Apparently, Robert Downley was rather well-off. He lived in a fancy three-storied house, with a beautiful garden and a large gold knocker on his front door.

Susan walks up to the door, and takes a deep breath. She grips Lucy's hand firmly in her own, and notices that the knocker is in the shape of a lion. She stares, and raises a trembly hand to knock on the door, preferring not to use the knocker.

'Coming!' someone calls. Someone with a distinctly masculine voice. Susan glances down at Lucy, and sees that she looks rather excited at the prospect of possibly making a new friend.

Footsteps thump closer.

'Who is it?' and Robert Downley opens the door.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I've decided to span this out to two chapters. So tune in next time, where I will reveal… Robert Downley! Or is it even him? Or even partake in the poll I have set up on my profile!! :) Please take the time out to vote. Your feedback means a lot.


	5. Apology

'There are no regrets in life, just lessons.'  
**Stevie Wonder**

It isn't Robert Downley; not even close. This man is far too young to be him. He has a head full of brown hair, and twinkling blue eyes, and in his late twenties. He stares curiously at the strangers standing in front of his front door.

'Yes?' he asks, hands resting on the door, and the gold, lion-shaped knocker glints in the sunlight. Susan tries to avert her eyes.

'My nanny wants to look for--' Lucy begins excitedly, and is quickly shushed by Susan's hand.

'I'm sorry, this must be the wrong address.' Susan hastily apologizes. The man smiles understandingly. 'That's quite alright.'

Susan tugs on Lucy's hand, and her spirits tank. She was so hoping to complete this particular task on her list. She is about to lead Lucy away from the house when she hears another voice.

This one is much, much raspier.

'Adam! Who is it?'

Susan turns back, jaw dropping.

'Just some stranger,' Adam replies, and beside him is an old man, with graying hair, and he is slightly stooped over with age. His wrinkled hands grip a walking cane. His spectacles are still circular, just the way Susan remembers them. She gasps, and hurries back. Lucy squeals in protest, shoes dragging on the ground.

'Sorry,' Susan says breathlessly. 'But are you Robert? Robert Downley?' she directs the question to the old man.

The old man gazes at Susan for a long time. Lucy and Adam are equally silent, glancing between them both confusedly.

'Phyllis.' he whispers, and his grip on the cane tightens considerably.

Susan resists an urge to cry. After all these years, he still remembered. She wonders just how much of an impact her snappish remark to him had caused. His eyes widen, and he silently gestures for Susan to enter his home.

She walks in hesitantly, and Lucy follows curiously, not caring what they were supposed to do here.

They living room is very spacious, and elegantly decorated. For a moment Susan wonders if his wife did all the decorating. The curtains are beige, and the walls are a cheery blue. A vase of flowers sit on a glass top of a coffee table, which is placed directly in front of a large, silver television. Susan thinks of her own black-and-white mini television wryly.

'Adam,' Robert says distractedly. 'Play with the little girl for a while. There are some things we need to talk about.'

Adam shrugs, and lifts Lucy up by her tummy. She laughs in delight, and Susan smiles. Robert walks to the kitchen, and Susan follows tentatively. The kitchen is warm and brightly lit, with flowery curtains and wooden tables, very reminiscent of the kitchens back when Susan was a child.

Robert sits down by the wooden table, and motions for Susan to sit next to him.

She does so, but she stays on the edge of her seat. She doesn't look at Robert in the eye; for some reason she cannot bring herself to. She fiddles with her fingers for a while concentrating on the bowl of fruit in front of her. She slides her index finger across the smooth surface of a green apple, and waits for Robert to talk first.

He doesn't. Instead, she can feel Robert looking at her patiently.

'I suppose you're wondering why I'm here.' Susan whispers, and she lifts her head slightly, concentrating on his thin cotton shirt. It is a bright blue, which has always been Susan's favorite color.

'Yes, in fact I am.' he replies, and Susan cringes inwardly. Of course he was. What kind of an idiot was she?

'Do you… do you still remember?' she asks, and she knows that Robert does.

He nods, and Susan finally looks up. His eyes are glazed over, presumably remembering that day. They are a brilliant green, and Susan has never noticed before.

'Is that your son?' Susan asks, and she directs her head towards the living room. Robert gives a laugh. 'Goodness me, no. He's my nephew.'

'Oh.' Susan thinks of all the nieces and nephews she might've had.

'He seems to be very good with children.' Susan comments, and Lucy's laugh filters through. Robert dips his head. 'He's a fine young man. I never had any children myself.'

Susan sees his eyes, and she can see that they are filled with something she cannot define.

'Me neither,' Susan adds quietly, so quietly she isn't even sure if Robert heard her, of if she wanted him to.

'You mean, that girl back there isn't you're daughter?' he asks, curiousity piqued.

'No.'

They ponder in the quiet for a moment.

'Look at us. A pair of mopey old seniors.' Robert suddenly says, and Susan gives a small laugh. 'Life just seemed to zoom by, doesn't it? Seems like just yesterday I was able to get out of bed without moaning about my back.'

Susan smiles; she can sympathize. She clears her throat, and is about to say something when Robert abruptly says, 'Is your name really Phyllis?'

'No,' Susan admits, embarrassed.

The corners of his mouth lift.

'How did you find out?' Susan questions.

'Remember when that girl ran up to you and called you Susannah back at the newspaper stand?'

Susan's stomach drops when he mentions Lucy unintentionally. 'It's Susan, not Susannah.' she corrects, and prays furiously under her breath that he'll drop the subject.

'Susan. Was that your sister?' he asks warmly. 'Where is she now? Do you both live together?'

'She died.' Susan replies succinctly, and Robert falls silent.

Susan's stomach tightens. She has always hated awkward situations.

'My wife died about thirty-five years ago too.'

Susan remembers the newspaper article she read all those years ago. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Robert's hand slink across the table, getting closer and closer to her own. His warm hands envelops hers, and she instantly feels comforted.

'I'm sorry.' Susan blurts out, and Robert looks mildly surprised. 'I'm sorry for all those years ago, and that train ride, and the way I snapped at you. I don't know what came over me, and I've been regretting it ever since--'

Robert shushes Susan.

'It's all in the past now.'

And Susan's heart sings with joy.

--

They spend the next half-hour chatting about other things that are decidedly less morbid. Susan soon finds out that Robert owned a water pump company, and he was now retired. Adam comes over every Saturday to talk with him, and he is Robert's sister's son. His sister is five years younger than him, and living a few blocks away. She also learns that he goes horse-riding with his sister every Sunday afternoon, and that he loves animals of all kinds.

Susan doesn't talk about herself much, mostly she nods and laughs at appropriate intervals. However, the more Robert talks, the more she realizes how empty and drab her life is. The only question Robert asks about her personal life is of she was ever married. She gives a tight nod, and Robert thankfully didn't pursue anymore on that subject.

Susan goes into the living room to see how Lucy is doing. Adam and Lucy are both sprawled down on the carpeted floor, and playing a board game.

'No! It's my turn now! Give me the dice!' Lucy says, attempts to snatch the dice out of Adam's grasp, laughing.

'Oh no, you don't!' Adam teases, and waves his fist out of Lucy's reach.

'Lucy dear, it's time for lunch!' Susan calls, and tugs on Lucy's sleeve. She pouts. 'But I want to play with Uncle Adam!'

Adam grins. 'You can come over every Saturday if you want, bud. I'll be right here waiting.'

Susan gives Robert an astonished look, and Robert shrugs. 'Anything you want, Lucy.'

Lucy claps her hands excitedly. 'Goodbye, Uncle Adam, Uncle Robert!' she says, and skips out happily with Susan. Susan waves, and both Adam and Robert wave back.

They step out into the afternoon. It takes Susan a moment to realize that she has forgotten how to get back to Lucy's street.

'Uh oh,' Susan mutters under her breath, and looks both ways. Left and right look identical. Susan walks back up to Robert's house, and knocks hastily. She explains her predicament, and Adam agrees to accompany her back.

Along the way, Adam frequently teases Lucy, and Susan can see that she completely adores him. They reach Lucy's home in no time at all, and Susan thanks Adam profusely. The front door opens, and Katie Rice opens it, face as black as thunder.

'Where on earth have you been?' she begins, but her rant peters off when she sees Adam standing there amiably. Her eyes widen.

Susan smiles to herself secretly, and knows that this just might be the start of something wonderful.

--

**Author's Note:** Lame ending, I know. I hope you guys still review, though. Oh yes, and thanks to Lara86 (I hope I got your name right!) for giving me some inspiration on a teeny bit of romance.


	6. Piano

'Music is the greatest healer of the human soul.'  
**Mike Nichols and Elaine May**

* * *

That night, in her lonely apartment, when Susan is lying in bed, she thinks about Adam and Katie. After Lucy had went inside the house, Adam and Katie had continued chatting idly outside. Katie kept tucking her hair behind her ear and Adam kept rocking back and forth on his heels.

Susan and Lucy had hidden behind a curtain and peeked out. Susan's knees protested wildly but she didn't care. She had felt awfully young again: spying on people flirting (she assumed it was flirting) with another young girl.

Her hands lay stiffly by her side, and she tightly grips the bed sheets. She doesn't know why, but the apartment feels more and more empty by the day. She cannot sleep. Her hair fans out behind her, resting on her small pillow.

When her mind drifts back to Adam and Katie, she cannot help but think of a time in her life when she was filled with love for a certain someone.

His name is Nathaniel North, and he is the boy from the tree.

--

After Susan had yelled out for him, Susan had attempted to climb the tree herself. Nathaniel crouched up in the branches, looking down with a friendly smile on his face. When Susan eventually made it up, both of them spent the entire afternoon lying down between the branches, watching leaves sway in the gentle summer breeze.

Neither of them spoke; there was no need for words. Susan just felt so much more calmer and serene whenever he was near. When she reluctantly climbed down the tree again to return home, she had asked for his name.

He looked mildly surprised, and gave it to her. 'Nathaniel. Nathaniel North. Or Nate for short.' he had said, and enquired Susan's name in return.

As cliché as it sounded, after that day they just kept on bumping into each other. At Susan's favorite restaurant, at the local supermarket, even at the same florist, once. Nate had eventually asked her out, and Susan accepted happily.

The more time he spent with her, the more besotted she became. Susan had introduced Nate to Peter, Edmund and Lucy proudly. They had welcomed him into the family warmly enough, and Susan was satisfied.

Then they died, in that accursed train crash.

Sometimes, when Susan thinks back, she wonders just how she would've gone through it all if not for Nate there to support her. She remembers that she cried constantly, and never left her apartment. Nate dropped by everyday, after work, to beg her to get out of bed.

Susan did, eventually. Then she retreated into herself. Not before long, the only person she ever spoke to was Nate, and some close colleagues.

But she had Nate.

And for that she was thankful

--

Susan stares forward, trying to see in the dark. Abruptly, she picks herself up from bed, and pulls open her nightstand's drawer noisily to once again remove the list. Her finger trails down the page and stops.

_8. Listen to Edmund's cassette._

--

Edmund had given her that cassette after him and Lucy had went to Narnia again. For some inexplicable reason, Edmund started playing the piano.

It started like this:

Their mother had owned a beautiful piano, raven black, and it stood in the living room. No one in their family actually knew how to play; the piano was inherited. There it stood for years and years, and was occasionally used when they were bored, and tinkered with it for a while.

Susan remembers that day. It was a bright, sunny afternoon and Susan was getting ready to go out with her friends. Susan cringes whenever she remembers this: she was putting on her makeup. Looking back, she wonders just why she even bothered putting that sticky, cumbersome stuff on her face anyway.

But what's done is done.

Susan was walking down the stairs when she hears the piano coming from the living room. She walked in and had seen Edmund sitting down before the piano, and peering at a sheet of music.

'Whatever are you doing?' Susan had asked, albeit awkwardly. It's been a long time since they both had spoken properly.

'Learning the piano' was Edmund's short response, and he continued poking a few keys here and there. She remembers that she had thought of it as a waste of time; and that Edmund would never learn how without a proper teacher.

Much to her disbelief, Edmund improved. Most evenings were then spent sitting around Edmund, listening as she played tune after tune, often making some mistakes, in which he would mutter a curse and continue playing. Susan never commented on his playing, but the others did. She simply stayed silent, but inside she had marveled at Edmund's brilliance.

Months passed, and soon Edmund was playing famous masterpieces Susan recognized, like 'Fur Elise' and 'Waltz'. The others hummed along but Susan stayed silent once again. Once, Lucy had asked her if she didn't like piano but Susan didn't answer.

From what her Mother told her, Edmund was now composing his own personal pieces, and trying them out on the piano.

On her eighteenth birthday, Edmund had given her a cassette, loosely wrapped in newspaper. He gave it to her nonchalantly, and waited for Susan to open it. 'Edmund! A present?' Peter had nudged Edmund in his side playfully, and Edmund had shrugged.

Susan opened it, and saw a piece of paper and a small cassette in it. 'They're my own personal compositions.' Edmund had informed her, and he was barely able to keep the pride out of his voice.

Susan didn't know what to say. 'Maybe I'll listen to them later.' and she had pushed the cassette away. Had she looked up, she would've seen Edmund's face crumple in pain.

Edmund had ceased all contact with her after that.

--

Susan found herself heaving, breathing in and out. Her eyes were stinging and stinging. She stood up, and felt her way blindly to the spare room in her apartment. She feels the doorknob and twists it. She enters, and stubs her toe on the edge of a box.

'Ow!' Susan tries to keep her voice down low, and she flips open the switch. The room is immediately illuminated.

Inside are boxes and boxes of stuff Susan never bothered to sort. Not all of them is hers. There are boxes which contain Nate's things, and boxes which contain her sibling's things. She feels surrounded, entrapped by memories. She looks for a certain box which contains her stuff.

She finds it, and it is sealed shut with tape. Using her fingernail, she hastily slides it across the smooth tape, and it snaps. Her eager hands open the flaps, and a cloud of dust greets her.

There are many bits and bobs in it: a broken mirror, a dirty mug, a half-mutilated book and even some sewing needles. She pulls out a badly wrapped package, and tears it open almost hungrily, desperate for anything that belonged to her brothers and sisters. The cassette is still intact, and very dusty. A piece of yellowed paper lies by it, and Susan picks it up.

She unfolds it, and sees that it is a list. It is numbered one to ten, and it is obviously a list of Edmund's compositions to her. In a haze, Susan notices that the first one is titled 'Pain and Loss'.

She picks herself up, and she can feel a layer of dust sticking to her kneecaps.

She is just about to go and play it when she realizes she doesn't have a cassette player. Her heart sinks, and she returns to her bedroom in dismay. She decides to go to Lucy's house at the crack of dawn to listen to it.

She sleeps fitfully again, with Edmund's cassette clutched firmly to her heart.

* * *

**IMPORTANT: I am fully aware that cassettes didn't exist until the 1960s, but I had to in order to make this work. So... yeah. That's it.**


	7. Being A Mother

'Life is like a novel with the end ripped out.'  
**Rascal Flatts, "Stand"  
**

* * *

It is the next day.

When Susan pushes back the moth-eaten curtains hanging dolefully in her apartment, she realizes that the sun is shining brighter than it ever has in two months. The dreary slush that carpeted roads and pavements have long since melted into puddles.

Spring has come. Another year has gone by.

Susan hurries out, clad in a thin cotton sweater. The cassette is firmly clutched in hand and her eyes are still crusty with sleep. She rubs them furiously, and prays fervently that Lucy had a cassette player.

There are plenty more children playing by the streets now; mostly children wearing brightly colored Wellingtons and jumping delightedly in puddles. The occasional car zooms by, as the street in which Susan lives in is a quiet place.

She walks for ten minutes, and she is there. The curtains are still drawn, and Susan wonders if they are still asleep. She hesitates outside the door, and wonders if she should just walk back home. Then someone flings open the curtains inside. It is Lucy. She looks down excitedly at Susan and quickly flings them shut. Susan hears heavy footsteps and the front door abruptly swings open.

'Mrs. Pevensie!' Lucy says happily. 'Why did you come so early today?'

'I have to do something.' Susan says, and she steps in. Katie Rice doesn't seem to be awake yet. 'Do you have a cassette player, Lucy?'

'Yes, I have one in my room,' Lucy begins. 'But why--?'

'I have something to let you listen.'

Lucy shrugs, and climbs up the carpeted stairs. 'This way!' she calls out, and disappears behind the landing. Susan follows cautiously, and she briefly thinks about what Katie would say if she found her in her house this early.

Lucy is in her room, and she drags a large, black cassette player from under her bed. Susan looks around her room, fascinated. The walls are a light pink, and the rest is a flurry of colors. Lucy has pasted many of her drawings on her white cupboard doors, and a small bookshelf with a few books. Susan notices with some amusement that there is a clock in the shape of a kitty cat.

'Here!' Lucy huffs, out of breath, and she snaps the cassette compartment open. Susan reaches in her pocket, and shakily pulls out the cassette.

Lucy takes it, and pops it in. Susan sits down on Lucy's bed, and she waits for the music to start, her palms sweating. She realizes that she isn't all that sure if she even _wants _to hear it.

Maybe it'll bring back memories.

Too many of them.

But the music starts playing. Lucy sits back, and watches the cassette player.

The first song is painfully slow and sad. Susan listens, and she is thunderstruck. She had no idea Edmund was this good. Somehow, this one reminds her of the clear blue sky. She closes her eyes, and she immerses herself in the music. Her heart seems to swell almost unbearably.

It ends, finally, on a quavering note that seemed to reverberate throughout Lucy's room. Lucy claps. 'That was really good. Was that you?' she asks.

'No.' Susan replies, her eyes still closed.

The second song starts, and this one somehow feels very hopeful, and much more upbeat than the previous one. She scrabbles around in her pocket and fishes out a crumpled piece of paper. She unfolds it, and sees that the second composition is entitled, 'Maybe'.

Susan wishes she knew what Edmund meant behind those songs. But listening is enough.

It is an hour later when the cassette finally finishes. Susan has stayed in the same position for the last hour, listening to Edmund play.

'Whoever played all those songs is really good.' Lucy declares, and she removes the cassette from the player. Susan accepts it, still in a dreamy haze. The cassette still feels warm.

Susan puts it back in her pocket, and shakes herself out of her reverie.

'Let's go now, darling.' Susan walks out of Lucy's room, clutching Lucy's hand.

She proceeds to make breakfast for Lucy, her head still replaying Edmund's tunes. Lucy is munching on her butter-and-jam toast when she hears something coming from upstairs. Susan's ear prick, and she can make out Katie's voice.

'I'll just be going upstairs for a while, okay Lucy?' Susan tells her, and Lucy nods, and continues eating her breakfast. Susan walks upstairs again. She heads towards Katie's room; a little ways from Lucy's. Her door is ajar, so Susan pushes it open. The bed is messy, but devoid of anyone. A photo hangs on the wall above her bed; it is a picture of Katie, Lucy and another unrecognizable man.

There is a bathroom in the bedroom and Susan hears that the shower is running.

_Maybe it was the water I heard, _Susan thinks uncertainly.

An unearthly wail comes from the bathroom, and Susan jumps. She edges closer to the bathroom door, and she peeks in.

She sees Katie Rice-- cool, composed Katie Rice-- sitting in the shower, fully clothes, with her arms wrapped around her knees, crying her eyes out. She is soaked to the skin and her clothes are drenched. Susan freezes, and she wonders with some panic if she is intruding upon a private moment.

Katie looks up suddenly, and Susan quickly turns away, heart beating madly. She prepares to flee away, but she stops when she hears Katie say quietly, 'Don't go.'

Susan hesitates, but she goes in anyway. The bathroom is very clean, and the floor is made of cold, cold marble. She stands outside awkwardly.

'It-- it'll be alright.' Susan says, and then flushes with embarrassment. Of all things to say…

'Do you ever wonder why I'm a single mother?' Katie asks.

Susan stays quiet, and she looks at Katie more carefully.

'Sometimes.'

'His name was Gary.' she starts. Susan's brain works furiously, and she hesitantly opens the shower's glass door and steps inside. Katie looks up at her, astonished, some hair sticks on her forehead. Even though Susan knows that in her fragile state she will probably catch a cold at the end of the day, Susan enters the shower, and sits down beside Katie.

The lukewarm shower water quickly soaks Susan, and the water seeps through her sweater, and it feels so refreshing. The water runs down her face, and it feels as though the water is washing away her flesh from her bone, her soul from her body; like its washing away all her memories, her scars, every bad feeling she had ever felt, and all her regrets. Her body sighs with relief.

Susan closes her eyes and is content to just hear Katie's voice.

'I married him when I was thirty.' Katie laughs humorlessly, and her arms tighten around her legs. Susan notices that her feet are very pale and delicate. She tentatively places her feet next to hers. The difference is staggering.

'He was my first husband. He was wonderful at first. I loved him so much. So much it actually hurt.'

Susan can identify. She thinks of Nate and for a moment she feels connected to Katie in some way, even though she is almost certain her story doesn't have a very nice ending.

Susan shivers, and Katie continues.

'Lucy was born. I felt so very complete, back then. We were a proper family: Lucy, Gary and me.

'Then it all changed.'

_Everything changes in the end_, Susan thinks rather bitterly.

'He started hitting me.'

Susan's eyes snap open, and she stared at Katie. She was looking straight ahead. Susan concentrates on the water flowing down towards the drain.

'I fought back. Then he started hitting Lucy too.' Katie sighs, and she shifts a bit.

'Then one day he left. Good riddance, too.' she said quite viciously. 'I hope he never comes back. The only thing good I ever got out of him was Lucy. Oh, Lucy.' then she starts to cry again, although her salty tears mix with the shower water.

Susan wraps her arms around Katie's hunched form comfortingly. They both had such hard lives. 'And now Lucy likes you more.' she weeps. 'Why am I such a bad mother?'

'Don't ever say that. I could never replace you.' Susan says, and she hugs Katie all the tighter. This seems to work, as Katie suddenly sags against Susan's withered form and her sobs cease.

'You just might have to spend a little more time with her, that's all.' Susan tells her gently. 'Lucy talks about you a lot.'

'Really?' Katie asks hopefully, and in that moment she is a small child again, seeking comfort and words of advice.

'Yes. And there's still Adam, isn't there?' Susan attempts to lighten the mood, and she reaches up to turn off the shower water. The last of it drains away, and both of them are left sitting down, soaked to their skins.

Katie laughs weakly, and she picks herself up.

'Thank you.' Katie says quietly, and Susan knows what she means.

'Anytime.' Susan smiles back, and she realizes that she is, in fact, shorter than Katie by a few inches. She thinks back ruefully of a time when she used to stand up straight and proud, not hunched over because of a bad back.

She hears small footsteps pad upstairs.

'Mummy! Are you awake--' Lucy bursts inside her mother's room and stops when she sees both her mother and her nanny standing, dripping water onto the wooden floor.

'Did you two bathe with your clothes on?' Lucy asks curiously.

Susan and Katie can only smile.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Did ya like it? Then review and tell me what you think! Also, please take part in a poll I have created on my profile page. Oh yeah, and how long do you guys want this to be? Just tell me via review ;)


	8. Boxes

'_There are many things happening now that shows us that, right now, is a time to live and love.'  
__**Stevie Wonder**_

* * *

Susan was right; she_ did_ catch a cold on the very next day. She lies, shivering in her lumpy bed in her apartment, and cocoons herself under her thin bed sheets, shivering although it is already noon.

It is a Sunday, and her only day off from being a nanny. She misses being around people now, and she thinks back ruefully to a time when she would've been happiest when she cut off all forms of contact from anyone.

Her nose is stuffy, and she sniffles pathetically. She feels completely and utterly horrible. She feels hot and cold at the same time, and she shakily reaches for a tissue.

The cassette still lies by her side.

Susan pulls the blankets up to her chin, and she attempts to sleep. Although she hasn't eaten in the last twelve hours, her appetite is lost. She wears long, comfortable sweat pants and a furry sweater but she still feels the cold.

Her eyelids burn.

She wonders dully what Katie and Lucy are up to now. Katie had mentioned something about bringing Lucy somewhere…

Her doorbell rings.

Susan doesn't recognize the noise; it's been a long time since anyone besides her visited this apartment. Her eyes widen, and she rasps out, 'Who is it?'

'Mrs. Pevensie!' she hears Lucy say from outside. 'We've come to visit you!'

Susan freezes. She simply cannot let Katie and Lucy see the state of her apartment. She hasn't swept the floor or dusted cupboards in years. She hesitates for a little while longer, and the doorbell rings more urgently. A loud crash is heard and some furious whispers.

Susan throws her bedcovers off, puts on the only decent robe she has, and goes to open the door, feeling of dread and mortification increasing with every step.

She unlocks the door, and pushes it open timidly. Lucy is standing outside, with Katie holding her hand, and Adam standing beside her, hands in his jean pockets and looking beyond her interestedly.

'Sorry,' Lucy says sheepishly, and she shows Susan the rusty, gilt sign that says _3B_ that hung outside her door. 'I accidentally ripped it off.'

'It's okay.' Susan murmured, and she awkwardly welcomes them inside, cheeks burning furiously.

She knows that they are slowly taking in every inch of her dusty apartment, from the moth-eaten curtains, to the ancient kitchen.

'Wow. Your apartment certainly is…' Katie started awkwardly. 'Very nice.'

Susan cringes inwardly. 'I know it isn't much but…'

'I like it.' Lucy says decisively. 'Anyway, Mrs. Pevensie, we were just going to the zoo! Would you like to come along with us?' she asks excitedly.

Susan thinks of her headache and her stuffy nose.

'I'm afraid I can't, darling.' Susan bends down and tell Lucy reluctantly. 'I'm really sick.'

'It's okay then. Mrs. Pevensie can't come, so we'll buy her a souvenir.' Katie gave Susan a small smile, and she smiles weakly back. Adam is looking at the only picture she has in the apartment. It is a picture of her and little Joseph. He looks at it with an unreadable expression on his face.

She doesn't have any pictures of them.

Not anymore.

Susan hugs her robe closer to her. Adam turns away from the picture, and Susan quickly looks away, not wanting anymore awkward moments.

'Well then, we best be going.' Katie says, and she jostles Lucy out of her apartment. 'Bye, Mrs. Pevensie!'

'Bye!' Lucy bids dolefully, and Adam follows wordlessly. Susan silently closes the door behind them and she is left alone in her apartment, once again. Her head throbs even more painfully. She walks back to her bedroom.

She passes by the picture of Joseph, and she pauses to look at it, like she does every single morning.

It was taken when Joseph had just been born, by a garrulous nurse who had an old-fashion camera at the ready. Nate lay by her, eyes unfocused. Susan's hair was drenched with sweat, and she had a giddy smile on her face. Joseph was bundled in blue cloth, and his eyes were closed.

Susan touches the cold glass of the photo, gently stroking Nate's face.

She walks away, and thinks longingly of her bed, her nose making her feel rather irritable.

Her bedroom seems much more foreboding now, for some reason. The List lies on her nightstand. She remembers that she still has a long way to go.

Susan idly picks it up, and smoothes out the crumpled paper.

Susan has no idea which one she wanted to do next.

Susan coughs violently, and her throat clogs up with phlegm. Her lungs protest weakly. She places the List back, and plods to the kitchen in search of a cup of cool water to soothe her sore throat.

She passes by the very room she found Edmund cassette. She pauses outside the door.

_2. Sort out the boxes._

_--_

Susan shakily opens the door, and flips on the switch. The room is still piled high with boxes sealed shut with shiny tape. Susan takes a deep breath, and reaches for the box nearest to her. It is a tiny box, and the word _Photos _is written across the top in big, black letters she recognized as her own. She remembers the day after the mind-numbing train accident, when she numbly sorted through everything and piled them into dreary boxes, never to be seen again.

She tugs on the flaps, and half-hopes that it will not budge.

Tape from several decades ago gives way easily, however. The tape snapped open, and Susan opened it tentatively.

There is nothing inside except for a small stack of black-and-white photos.

Susan picks them up, and carefully looks at the first picture.

Pictures in those days were extremely rare, and cameras were large, bulky things on tripod stands and you had to crouch behind a thin black cloth to take a picture.

This is a family photo.

Susan pushes back her tears and forces them back into her ducts, and she tries to look at the picture with detached interest. The quality is grainy and rather faded.

Susan acts as though this family is not hers.

She looks at a tall, blonde boy in a tight, collared shirt and observes how uncomfortable his expression is. A cheery girl in a puffy dress smiles brightly, showing off a missing front tooth. A surly-looking boy glares, bow tie lopsided. Husband and wife sit down in front on chairs, looking very distinguished and with a distinct smile on their faces.

Susan pretends not to take notice of a dark-haired girl standing in the corner of the photograph. Instead, she looks at the others.

Next is a photo of a wedding. Susan refuses to look at the herself. Instead, she looks at the handsome groom, with a worried smile on his face. She remembers how that wedding went.

--

It was barely a few days after the train crash.

They had already booked the date for the wedding, even though Susan wanted to post-pone it further. It was a grim affair, that wedding. Only half of the guests showed up, and plenty of them were gloomy throughout the entire evening. The ceremony was rushed, and so was the dinner.

Susan had tried not to cry for the whole evening, and the wedding turned sour. Aunt Alberta even cried constantly.

Susan had always pictured her wedding as a cheery day, with people cheering all over the place and confetti thrown everywhere. Guests left hurriedly as soon as their vows were said. Barely three hours into the wedding, and everyone was gone.

Susan didn't care much.

All she could think about when she walked down the lonely aisle was those nine empty seats she reserved for nine people, and the fact that none of them could've attended.

--

And now here she is. While they rot underground, she rots away in the air.

Susan furiously rubs her eyes and moves on to the next photo. Susan can tell this one used to be colored, but the reds and yellows have long since faded away. It is a photo of Eustace, back when he was a little child of five. He was scowling into the camera and there were four other kids in the background.

A golden haired boy is running up to the camera, mouth open, about to speak some words Susan would never hear again. Susan herself is standing at the corner, brow furrowed and shouting. Lucy is being chased by Edmund, and her face is forever immortalized into an expression of utter delight and joy. Edmund simply seems bent on catching her.

Susan remembers this as one of the numerous summers they spent at Aunt Alberta's home.

She pulls out another photograph; the last one.

This is the one that truly breaks her heart.

Edmund is playing the piano in this picture. Peter and Lucy are both watching him with large beams on their faces so Susan assumes that one of her parents must've captured this picture.

What makes it so heart-breaking is the fact that she is not there.

Susan scours the photograph for any sight of her, and finds none.

Her eyes search desperately, and she recognizes herself in the shadows.

But it is not a Susan she knows.

This Susan is caked with makeup, and she carries a large purse. Her dress is strapless, and her hair is piled high. She has an expression of utter contempt on her face, and she is evidently simply passing by.

What a chance that she was in this photo.

Susan removes all four from the small box, and makes a firm resolution to frame them up later. All of them except the one with her in the shadows. Susan cannot bear to look at it again.

Susan reaches for another box. _Lucy _is written on top.

A box of Lucy's personal things.

Susan hesitates, but she rips the top off in a sudden motion.

It is an assortment of things, from broken toys to torn books. A small comb, and a box of coloring pencils. Some ribbon and a thin notebook. Susan slowly sifts through the things, and marvels at the pristine condition they are in. A pack of playing cards from years ago are still shiny and glossy. Even the coloring pencils are still sharp and unused.

Susan feels closer to Lucy than she ever had in years.

She reaches for a dried pinecone, and wonders briefly why on earth it is here.

Susan pulls out a small snow globe.

It is the snow globe she gave to her for Christmas when Susan was thirteen. She peers inside. A castle stands amidst the falling fake snow flakes.

Susan realizes that she only bought it because it bore some resemblance to a certain castle she was once so very happy in. She flings it away, gasping hard. It bounces harmlessly off the walls and rests somewhere behind all those boxes.

Susan sits there, panting.

Then she reaches for the slim notebook she had noticed earlier. She flips to the first page and realizes that the words inside are in Lucy's handwriting. Susan gulps, and reads the first scrawled sentence.

_Dear Susan,_

_Please read this. I know you might want to throw this away now but I need you to read this. A few days ago, while Peter, Edmund, me, Professor Digory, Aunt Polly, Eustace and Jill were eating dinner, someone fell--_

Lucy had clumsily crossed out that part and started on a new paragraph.

_Dear Susan,_

_We need you to come over to Professor Digory's mansion now. We have something important to show you. Peter and Edmund found something that might bring us back to Nar--_

_Dear Susan,_

_I know that you still think that we're crazy but this discovery just might lead to something. We might even be able to see Aslan again--_

_Susan, _

_Please believe me. Narnia still exists--_

_Susan, _

_WHY WON'T YOU BELIVE ANYMORE? I HATE YOU! WHY DID YOU HAVE TO CHANGE? NOW I DON'T EVEN--_

_Dear Susan,_

_I love you. Please come back. I--_

And it stopped right there.

Susan gapes at the page in shock. A drip of moisture falls on the page and Susan realizes it is her own tears. She doesn't bother to palm it away, instead she flips through the rest of the notebook desperately, but nothing else is written inside. She carefully puts the notebook back in the box.

Susan opens another box, and tries with all her might to not let another tear fall. This box isn't labeled at all. She opens it blindly, and comes face to face with all her cosmetics.

Susan wordlessly picks up a golden tube of lipstick, holding all her emotions in.

This accursed lipstick.

Susan places it back and picks up a bottle of perfume. It is made of crystal, and has many different facets. This one is an old-fashioned bottle, with a squeezer to eject perfume. The liquid within is a beautiful amber color, and it sparkles even in the dim lighting. She holds it in her palm and slowly stands up. The bottle's many facets reflect light, and Susan remembers thinking that this was the most glamorous bottle of perfume she had ever owned.

She has never seen anything so ugly.

Susan's breath comes faster, and her gaze is fixed on the crystalline bottle.

In a sudden motion that shocks even herself. She throws the bottle hard towards the opposite wall, screaming loudly. She screams, and her head pounds agonizingly. Her throat feels even sorer. The bottle smashes into a million fragments, and the wall is stained with perfume. It's sickly sweet smell permeates the air, and Susan stomach turns.

She lets out another primal scream.

Her mind swirls, but she doesn't stop screaming.

Her voice bounces off the restricting walls of the room, and it hurts her own ears.

She feels more and more light-headed.

She releases all her pent-up emotions into that scream: anger, hate, regret, pain, loss, love, jealousy, fear, angerhateregretpainlosslovejealousyfear…

When she is done screaming, her head throbs so hard her whole body seems to shake along. Her eyes blink, and she clutches her head woozily, vision flickering.

She falls to the floor, and her vision goes black.

The bottle shards litter the ground, but Susan does not feel the pain as they pierce her skin. All she knows is the comfortable darkness.

And she drifts away.


	9. Hospital

'_Be thankful for what you have, you'll end up having more.'  
__**Oprah Winfrey**_

* * *

Beep.

Beep.

Susan feels exceedingly uncomfortable.

She tries to turn in her bed, but she cannot move. She frowns in her sleep, and discovers with some alarm that this bed is too soft to be hers. It doesn't seem to be night, either. Beneath her eyelids, she can detect bright white lights from above. Her wrists feel strange, and so does her clothes. They feel very scratchy.

She hears murmurs, and Susan struggles to wake up. Her fingers move slightly, and someone gasps. She hears someone rushing to her side, and gently gripping her frail fingers. Susan feels extraordinarily drained of energy. A large machine with various wires coming out from it stands by Susan's side, and it is the one that is causing the beeping noise.

'Mrs. Pevensie?' a little girls voice cries out, and Susan recognizes it as Lucy's.

Her eyes snap open, and she immediately squints. The white lights above are nearly blinding her.

_Am I in Katie's house? _she wonders blearily, and tries to focus.

'Mrs. Pevensie!' Lucy sobs, and she flings her arms around her.

Susan wordlessly looks at her, and her eyes widen when she catches sight of her clothing. It is a blue, and unmistakably a hospital dress. There are two tubes taped to her wrist, and Susan is horrified to see that they go inside her skin.

Her heart sinks as she realizes she is on a hospital bed.

Katie is standing by Lucy's side, and her face bears dried tear tracks. To Susan's surprise, Adam and Robert are both further back, similar expressions of relief on their faces.

'You're back!' Katie says, and she smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes.

Susan gives a weak laugh. 'What happened?'

'When we came back from the zoo, we came back to visit you to give you the souvenir I bought.' Lucy says, and thrusts a brightly colored cap with a giraffe smiling horridly at her. Susan smiles feebly, and reaches a hand to take it from her.

'And we--' Katie pauses for a while. 'It was so horrible. We found you in a store room, and you were lying down on the floor. Adam helped carry you to his car, and we sent you to the hospital.'

'Thank you, Adam.' Susan tells him, and Adam nods gravely.

'You're blood pressure was extraordinarily high, for some reason.' Adam says. 'What were you doing before?'

Susan abruptly remembers those letters and the smashed bottle of perfume.

'I forget.' she lies, and Adam nods understandingly.

Silence falls, and only Lucy is talking, filling Susan in on their trip to the zoo.

It was until then when Susan has the feeling that something is wrong. Katie seems like she is desperately trying to hide something, Robert looks very grave, and Adam seems extremely uncomfortable, and he shifts around from foot to foot. Only Lucy seems really happy.

'Is there something wrong?' Susan asks warily, and she tries to sit up right. Her wrist gives an uncomfortable twinge.

Katie gives Robert and Adam a fleeting glance.

'We have something to tell you.'

Adam immediately hurries Lucy out of the room, and she protests indignantly. When both of them are outside, Robert starts to speak.

'When they were checking you over for any other internal injuries…' he begins rather awkwardly. Susan glances at Katie confusedly, and she sees that her eyes look rather damp again.

'Yes…?'

'They found something in your lungs.'

Susan freezes.

'They-- oh, Mrs. Pevensie. Your lungs.'

'Lung cancer, is it?' Susan says almost amiably. 'I've known for quite some time now.' Her mind flurries back to all those countless cigarettes she had lighted up and placed between her lips.

'But… aren't you…' Katie asks disbelievingly. Robert stays silent, but looks at Susan in a most unsettling way.

'I really don't mind.' Susan tells them, and forces a smile on her face, and she desperately tries not to let her tears leak out.

'Susan Pevensie,' a female doctor walks in through Susan's own room, and she is holding a large clipboard. Her coat is as white as the walls around her. 'I see that you are scheduled for a CT scan this afternoon to determine how far the cancer has spread, although I should think that--'

'I don't want a CT scan.' Susan says in a clear voice, and the doctor stops short, peering at her from the tops of her glasses.

'Pardon me? I'm sorry, Mrs. Pevensie, but to surgically remove the cancerous parts of your lungs we have to--' the doctor taps impatiently on her clipboard with a blue pen.

Susan interrupted her again. 'I don't want to surgically remove the cancerous parts of my lungs.' she says steadily, and the Katie's jaw drops. Again, Robert stays silent. His bushy white eyebrows furrow.

'I'm afraid you have misunderstood me, Mrs. Pevensie.' the doctor insists, and Susan sighs.

'I understood perfectly, doctor. But I must insist that no surgery or scans will be performed on me.'

Susan doesn't know why she is doing this. Doesn't she want to live?

The female doctor looks at Susan for a while, and she walks out of her cubicle quite suddenly. She gestures for Katie to follow her, and Katie hastily complies.

Susan and Robert are left.

From beyond the doors, Susan can make out some conversation.

'Without the patient's consent we cannot--'

'But you have to!' comes Katie's insistent plea.

Susan is rather touched; she had no idea Katie cared that much.

Robert walks over to her hospital bed.

Susan deliberately averts her eyes, and she is very aware that she's being very childish.

'Why, Susan?' he asks softly.

Susan doesn't say anything, instead she stares outside of a window directly beside her. She notices with some mild surprise that there is a ladybug on the window. Her (she preferred to think of it as a her) spots were inky black Susan counted seven of them. The ladybug continues to scuttle over the shiny surface of the glass window.

The ladybug reaches the edge of the window. She pauses for a while, and in a flash she takes off, tiny wings fluttering.

'Your two brothers and sisters…' Robert begins again. 'Do you visit them often?'

Susan thinks of their lonely graves, those gray slabs she has been neglecting for the past few decades. 'No, I haven't visited them in a long time.' Susan croaks.

'Are they still here in this world?' Robert questions quietly.

Susan seems to have something stuck in her throat. Robert turns out to be remarkably perceptive.

'Dead and gone.' Susan tells him emotionlessly.

'There's no guarantee that you'll be back with them even after you die, Susan.'

This is exactly what Susan wanted; to be back with her siblings and everyone she ever cared about again. She gives a tiny gasp, and begins to cry in earnest.

'There, there,' Robert murmurs softly, and strokes Susan's back comfortingly. 'Now, how about that scan?'

Susan sniffles, and stops crying. 'No.'

Robert gives a small sigh, but he pursues the subject no longer.

Susan finds that she feel rather drowsy now. Her eyes flutter shut, and the last thing she hears before she sleeps again is Robert saying, 'Sleep well, Susan.' and a gentle squeeze of her hands.

--

The female doctor comes back to check on Susan regularly, and Susan finds out that her name is Dr. MacKenzie. Lucy and Katie visit for the next three days, and Adam occaisonally follows. Lucy always sits by her side everyday and tells her about her day at school. Katie always gets rather teary whenever she sees Susan, and Susan regrets that she is causing her so much pain.

Susan is released on her fourth day, and she walks out of the hospital hand-in-hand with Lucy. Katie is waiting by the hospital, and Adam is behind the wheel.

'We have a surprise for you, Mrs. Pevensie!' Lucy tells her excitedly, and tugs her inside the car. Susan laughs, and tries to ignore the worried glances Katie routinely gives her. Susan seems to be coughing up blood more and more often now, and she deliberately ignores this.

Adam brings Susan back to her apartment. Lucy bounces up the stairs, and Susan wonders amusedly if Lucy's energy ever runs out. Lucy pushes open her apartment door, which is looking rather strange now that the '3B' sign is gone.

'Ta da!' Lucy says proudly, and Susan steps inside.

The apartment is spick and span, and everything seems new. Her curtains are now a cheery blue, and her floors actually glisten now. Her kitchen countertops are smooth to the touch, and even her refrigerator is properly restocked.

Susan walks around, stunned.

'You didn''t have to buy food for me!' Susan protests.

'After all you did for Lucy and me,' Katie smiles. 'You deserve it, Mrs. Pevensie.'

Susan walks to the store room full of boxes, and she is relieved to see that Katie didn't throw away the boxes, she simply swept up the perfume bottle shards and resealed the boxes neatly.

'Adam helped too,' Katie says, and Adam bobs his head graciously. 'It was nothing.' he insists.

Susan looks at Katie, Adam and Lucy, and she is suddenly overwhelmed.

'Thank you.' she whispers, and those two words are enough.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Yes, I know this feels like a filler chapter, because it rather is. It picks up again in the next chapter, though, where Susan gets on with the list and her condition worsens considerably. Also, I'll take **xcupcakex**'s advice and post the actual list at the very end. :) Until then, review...?

Also, congratulations to **Lucy **for being the 100th reviewer! Thanks a lot!


	10. Ocean

'_One must desire something to be alive.'  
_**Margaret Delanel**

* * *

Susan spends the next couple of days resting in her apartment; not because she wanted to, but because Katie had insisted rather tearfully.

'Take a few days off,' she had told her.

And now here she was: sitting down in her armchair and staring blankly at the moving pictures on her television. The remote has long since disappeared, and Susan has to get up to change the channel. A pack of cigarettes lay by her side, and her fingers itch to grab one.

_Another one won't hurt, _she thinks rather grimly.

But she doesn't, anyway.

_For Katie, _Susan grouses, but she knows quit smoking now will hardly make any difference, anyway. According to what Dr. MacKenzie had insisted on telling her, the cancer had already spread throughout both of her lungs.

Susan guesses that she has about three more months left to live.

Surprisingly enough, Susan does not panic about this. Even now, she accepts her death. The only thing she cannot bear about dying is the prospect of leaving Katie and Lucy behind. She would miss Robert and Adam too.

How strange. Two months ago, if Susan looked back on dying, she would have thought that she would die alone, with no one to grieve for her.

She sighs, and hobbles over to the television. She pushes the 'off' button, and the television flickers off.

Susan marvels at the fact that her carpet was, in fact, once a nice burgundy and had a pattern of trees on it. Katie, Lucy and Adam certainly did a very thorough job. She feels a dart of gratitude.

She walks over to her kitchen, and painstakingly makes herself a cup of coffee. Everything she does seems to take up so much more energy now, and Susan feels more and more drained of energy. Her limbs ache more often and her left knee now twinges if she bends it too much.

She sits there at her tiny dining table, stirring her coffee idly with a silver spoon and staring in to space.

She still hasn't finished with the boxes.

Susan pulls out The List from her pocket, and smoothes it out. She removes a pencil she keeps in her pocket, and prepares to cross out, _2. Sort out the boxes._

Her pencil hovers above the number two, but it doesn't touch the paper. Susan sighs resignedly, and she knows that she hasn't completed the task, not properly.

She drains the last of her coffee, and she hobbles over to the spare room. Susan shuts the door behind her, sits on the floor with some difficulty, and begins to sift through all her memories.

She opens a box with _Peter _on top. The word 'Peter' is written in immaculate handwriting, and Susan remembers it as Peter's. She smiles for a while at the black words, and opens the box. There is plenty of Peter's textbooks inside, and many essays he has written. Susan moves them aside for anything more personal.

Susan digs around at the bottom of the cardboard box, and pulls out something distinctly paper-like.

It turns out to be a card, messily drawn. A vaguely girl-like figure is in front, and a cake is in front of her. Five candles stand on the cake, and someone has scrawled, 'Happy Birthday, Susan!' in messy handwriting.

It is the card Peter gave him for Susan's fifth birthday.

Susan caresses the word 'Susan'. She flips it open with trembling fingers.

Inside, Peter has drawn plenty of balloons. The card's edges are distinctly brown now, and the paper seems to crumble easily.

There is a reason why it is Peter who is keeping the card, and not Susan.

Susan puts the card down, closes her eyes and remembers.

--

It was midnight.

Susan lay in bed, and she was pretending to be asleep. Lucy's breathing seemed calm enough… Susan carefully pushed her blankets off, and froze when Lucy abruptly turned over in her sleep. Susan knelt down and removed two suitcases from the bottom of her bed. She lugged them out soundlessly, and hurriedly put on some proper clothes.

She was moving away.

Susan felt rather guilty for doing this, but it was necessary. She would go crazy if she had to stay with her family for one more day. All that talk about 'Narnia'…

She quickly donned her coat, and buttoned it up. She had to be quick.

Susan had telephoned the cab agency a few hours before and she had scheduled a taxi to come and pick her up at exactly one in the morning.

Susan finished with her clothes. She tiptoed out of her room, and gave Lucy one last glance as she did so. After all, this wasn't going to be the last time she spoke to Lucy.

Little did Susan know that she was so very, very wrong.

She hurried out onto the hallway, and she entered Peter and Edmund's room as she did so. There was just one last thing she had to do. Susan placed the card Peter had given her on her fifth birthday on his nightstand. She had no idea why she was doing this but it felt more final, somehow. Peter had pulled his blankets up so high that the only part Susan could see of him was his too-long golden hair that desperately needed a haircut.

On Edmund's nightstand, she had placed a small note.

With that, Susan went downstairs hastily.

The yellow cab was already outside, throbbing, waiting.

Susan locked the gate from behind her, and she opened the cab door. Placing both of her suitcases in the car boot. 'Where to, miss?' the cab driver had asked, a thick, black cigar edged between his wrinkly lips. Susan remembered thinking how disgusting this man was to be smoking.

Susan told him her address, and she sped off into the night, leaving all of her family behind.

If she had looked back, Susan would've seen her youngest brother at his window, looking at the retreating cab with tears streaming down his face, note clutched in his desperate hands.

--

And here Susan is now, forty years later and dying.

Susan briefly wonders exactly what happened after she had left. Was there a sort of family meeting the morning later? Or had everyone gone about doing their own businesses, not caring whether she had left or not. Susan prefers to think that it was the former, but deep down inside her she knows it was the latter.

She pushes Peter's box away, not wanting to see more.

Instead, she takes Edmund's box, and rips it open. Her fingers sting.

There is almost nothing inside. There is only a small piece of crumpled paper and a golden, heart-shaped locket. She removes the locket, and stares at it curiously. She doesn't remember this locket, and it seems unlikely that Edmund bought it for himself. The heart is tiny, and Susan peers at it closely to find that there are grooves in the heart. Susan tries to open them, and it swings open quite easily.

There are two sides to the heart now, and Susan can see an opening on top of each side to put photos in. However, both sides are empty. Susan examines the other sides of the locket, and she is flabbergasted to find that her name is carefully engraved on one side of the locket. It is unmistakably hers.

Susan doesn't remember even setting eyes on this locket.

Susan looks at the other side of the locket, searching for any other clues.

There are none.

Susan sits there for a while, contemplating the mystery of this golden locket. She picks up the crumpled piece of paper lying at the bottom, and unfolds it.

_To my family,_

_When you wake up, I will already be gone. Please do not panic, I have simply moved to a new apartment. Don't worry about me, Nate will take care of me. Please know that this is for the best. Goodbye for now._

_Susan_

And below that Susan had scribbled down her new address.

After all these years… Edmund was still keeping it?

Susan shakily takes out The List, and places a cross on _2. Sort out the boxes._

--

The next day, Susan goes over to Lucy's house, the golden locket encircling her neck. She reaches Lucy's house, and rings the bell. Katie answers the door.

'Mrs. Pevensie!' she exclaims, horrified. 'Whatever are you doing here? You're supposed to be resting at home!'

'I've rested long enough, Katie.' Susan chuckles lightly. 'Don't worry, I feel perfectly fine.' she spreads her arms, and suppresses a wince as her sore arms twinge slightly. _Ah, old age, _she thinks wryly, and steps inside Katie's warm household.

She is surprised to see that Adam and Robert are inside. Robert is sitting in front of the television, engrossed in a documentary, while Adam is playing with Lucy. Lucy seems rather glum but she brightens up the moment she sees Susan in the door way.

'Mrs. Pevensie! You're back!' Lucy exclaims happily. 'Come and play Snakes and Ladders with me and Uncle Adam!'

Susan laughs, and sets down her purse. She spends the next half hour climbing up ladders and gliding down snakes. Adam and Susan discreetly let Lucy win, and she is delighted when she does so.

Katie and Robert are chatting idly in the kitchen.

Susan sits back to rest for a while, and closing her eyes, just listening to the babble of happy voices in the background. It's been a long time since she felt this… this home. Yes, this felt just like family again.

--

Hours pass, and Katie had brought Lucy upstairs for her afternoon nap, Lucy kicking her legs feebly along the way, yawning. Robert goes up to check on them and Susan is left alone downstairs, in the living-room.

Susan absent-mindedly takes out The List; it has almost become a habit now.

She looks at number 4, a task she has been contemplating for a while now.

'What's that you're holding?' someone asks genially, and Susan whips her head around, only to see Robert standing there curiously. Susan relaxes and gives a nonchalant laugh.

'Nothing.' Susan hesitates for a while.

'Robert… do you know if there are any beaches around here?'

'Not for miles.' Robert frowns. 'Why, do you want to go swimming?'

Susan smiles dryly. 'It's a bit more complicated than that.'

Robert pauses for a while. 'Is it very important?'

'Fairly.' Susan sighs. 'I suppose I'll never get it done.'

Robert gives Susan a long, penetrating look. 'There's a beach an hour away.'

'Really?' Susan says, astonished.

'If you want to, I could bring you,' Robert shrugs.

'You can still drive?'

'I may be old, but I'm still capable of doing a few things on my own.' Robert commented teasingly. He jingles something in his corduroy pants' pocket, and Susan presumes they are car keys. She looks down at The List, neatly folded and resting in her hand.

'Let me tell Katie.' Susan smiles, and Robert chuckles. 'I'll be waiting in the car outside. Susan shoots Robert a grateful look, and hurries upstairs. Lucy's door is ajar, and yellow light filters out.

'Mrs. Rice, I--' Susan pushes open Lucy's door and finds Lucy fast asleep. Katie and Adam are also asleep, and both are on the floor. Adam has his arms wrapped protectively around Katie's torso, and he is snoring lightly. Katie has an expression of pure bliss on her face, something Susan hasn't seen in a long time.

Susan grins at this sight, and quickly scribbles a note, and leaves it by Katie's side. Susan then hurries downstairs, heart beating a steady rhythm at the prospect of completing yet another task.

_4. Swim again._

_--_

Susan climbs inside Robert's dusty silver sedan, and he revs the engine cheerily. Susan marvels at Robert's optimism, and both of them drive off in a cloud of dust.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence between them, Susan discovers that Robert hums tunelessly while driving, and he frequently checks his rearview mirror at every chance he gets. Susan doesn't say anything, but she knows it is because of his wife and her car accident.

While Robert hums, Susan's mind drifts away.

She remembers a time when she loved swimming ever so much, and had even won a few gold medals at school. She had loved pools; with their crystal clear blue water, reflecting light and enveloping Susan in its ever-warm embrace. She felt so free in water, and the fact that she was good at swimming served to push Susan even more. Soon, she was participating in competitions and making her family proud. Susan took pride in the fact that even Peter couldn't best her in swimming.

But then all of a sudden she just… stopped. Just like that.

Susan knows the real reason why, but she decides not to dwell too long on that subject. Susan wonders just how she is going to swim in full clothing. She thinks about a swimsuit, and shudders. Her, wear a swimsuit at her age? She would most probably poke someone's eye out with her saggy bottom and horrifyingly flabby arms. She decides to deal with that later, too.

One moment, she remembers looking out of the window, seatbelt strapping her uncomfortably to the plush seats, the next moment she finds herself opening her eyes blearily and looking out at a night sky, and an uncomfortable, stiff neck.

She sits upright, alarmed.

'You've woken up,' beside her, Robert observes idly, eyes trained on the road in front of him.

'I fell asleep?' she asked stupidly.

'Yes, we're almost there.'

'I thought you said the beach was just an hour away! We must've been on the road for at least three!' Susan splutters, thinking about the note she had left Katie, saying that she would only be gone for three hours, at the most.

'Would you have come if I told you it would've taken three-and-a-half?' Robert asks her, and Susan falls silent rather grudgingly. Oh well, since they were already close…

Susan peers outside again and sees that they are driving along a pier, with various shops that have already closed for the day. There is virtually no one out, and the sidewalks are completely empty.

'Perhaps we've come too late…' Susan says a little uncertainly.

'I don't think the beach has hours.' Robert smiles.

'No, it doesn't.' Susan admits.

Susan keeps her eyes open for any sight of the ocean. Then, as suddenly as a match bursts into flame, Susan saw it as Robert rounded a curve. Even in the dark, it seemed to sparkle cheerily. It stretches as far as Susan can see, and it is almost painfully beautiful. Susan remembers when she used to go to the beach with her siblings.

Robert pulls up beside the beach, and kills the engine.

'Where are we, anyway?' Susan wonders just exactly how far are they from Finchley.

'We are in Southend-on-Sea, and this is East Beach.' Robert says with unnecessary flourish, and Susan's brain works furiously. She had a vague notion of where Southend-on-Sea is, but she knows that it is far, far away from Finchley.

Robert gently takes her withered hand, and leads her towards the sandy beach. The sand is a dirty yellow, and Susan kicks off her shoes to feel the sand between her toes; something she hasn't felt in a long, long time. Susan lets go of Robert's hands, and runs further down the beach.

There the ocean was: moving restlessly, with waves swelling and foaming and running up eagerly onto the already damp sand, close enough to tickle the bare feet.

'Oh! It's cold.' she exclaims joyfully. Robert catches up with her. He too, dips his feet in the shallow water. Robert leans down to roll his cuffs, then he rolls Susan's too. He holds her hand as both of them wade out until the water is past their ankles, almost at their knees. Susan can hear the mighty roar of waves, and she can smell the smoke of a fisherman's bonfire, far off down the empty beach. She lets go of Robert's hand.

'Susan?' he asks.

Susan wades out farther, taking one step at a time. Soon, the water is way past her knobbly knees, and past her thighs. Her pants have long since been soaked, and she is aware of Robert watching anxiously behind. Her loose cotton shirt floats out around her, and the water is shockingly cold, colder than the pools of her girlhood, and her teeth chatters until her body adjusts to the temperature.

'Be careful, Susan!' Robert calls out, his voice horribly far away. Susan pauses for a while, and wonders if she should be doing this. There is a million reasons why she shouldn't: she hasn't swam in ages; what if she drowns? She has just recovered from her cold; what if she gets sick again?

_Do I still know how to swim?_ Susan ponders, suddenly afraid. Was it the kind of thing you forgot how to do?She should've waited until daytime, or at least brought a towel…

_No more, _she thinks.She has been afraid for the last forty years, but she doesn't want to be afraid here. Not now. And swimming had been her favorite thing in the years of her girlhood. _No more, _she repeats firmly to herself, and she pushes off with her feet, propelling her forward.

A wave hits her in the face, and she splutters, spitting the salty water out, and tries to move through it, hands reach through the dark water, feet churning unsteadily before finding its rhythm. And there it is. The water holds her effortlessly, and she is swimming again.

'Hey!' Robert calls. Susan half-expects to turn around and find her sister Lucy, standing at the edge of the water, pale and goose-pimpled, crying, 'Susan, you're going too far out! Susan, come back!'

Susan turns, and almost laughs to see Robert paddling after her, teeth clenching and head held high (to protect his hearing aid, Susan figures). She floats on her back, gray hair streaming out with each wave until he has caught up with her, panting heavily.

'You didn't tell me you wanted to swim!' he says, laughing weakly, hands cutting smoothly through the water, trying to stay afloat.

'It was an impulse!' Susan tells him.

'Have you had enough?'

Susan tucks her legs against her chest, and goes underwater. She feels like an egg in a pot, buoyed and surrounded entirely. 'Yes,' Susan finally answers, and both of them paddle back to shore, laughing.

Susan is still shivering when she steps on the sand, and she finds with some pleasure that the grains stick to the soles of her feet, like they should.

Robert unearths two towels from the trunk of his car, and gives Susan one. Susan wrings out her wet hair, and wraps herself in the towel's warmth, trying to keep the cold out.

She is wet, she is cold, she is shivering, but Susan feels happier than she has ever had in these past few weeks.

She steps into Robert's car, and both of them drive away into the night, leaving the pulsing ocean behind.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Yes, this chapter certainly is longer than usual. :) So I hope you guys were reasonably OK with this chapter!! Oh, and this story might just go one for another ten chapters or so; there's still a lot of stuff I have planned for Susan, more heavier stuff. :D


	11. Debt

'People living deeply have no fear of death.'  
**Anais Nin**

--

Susan is awoken by loud knocking on her front door. She frowns in her sleep, and wills for the noise to cease. 'Oi, open the door!' someone yells angrily.

Susan ignores the voice and buries down further her blankets, scrunching her eyes and hands enclosed tightly around the golden locket. It feels warm and comforting. Her legs still feel rather sore from the swimming a few nights ago and she thinks back rather wistfully of the pulsing sea.

The stranger stops knocking eventually, and something rustles. A loud clang, and shuffling footsteps. Susan breathes a silent sigh of relief, and continues to sleep restlessly. She finds she simply cannot go back to sleep again. She wakes up, walks over to her front door to see what had caused the rustling sound.

Susan finds a letter just before her front door. Susan looks at the letter, lying on the ground, and makes no move to pick it up. She can see something scrawled on the front: THIRD WARNING. The words are spiky and rather familiar.

Susan already knows what the letter is.

Susan realizes with some dread that she hasn't paid her rent for three months in a row. Her mind flashes back to The List.

_6. Pay the landlord._

And her resolve strengthens. She would complete The List, even if it was the last thing she ever did. _And it probably will be, _Susan thinks dryly.

Susan turns to her kitchen, and sits down at the wooden table. She rips the letter open, and pulls out a single piece of yellowish paper. It is handwritten and not very official-looking. As she does every month, she scrolls down to the total at the bottom, the sum she has to pay.

Instead, there is a big, fat 'YOU WILL BE EVICTED IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY'.

Evicted.

Susan panics. Where will she live if she really does get evicted?

She looks at the total sum and is staggered to see that she has to pay five hundred and sixty-three pounds and seventy-three cents before March. She stares at the figure for a long while, and her mind whirls. She only has about two hundred now for the nanny money.

Susan crumples up the letter, and throws it against the opposite wall angrily. Sixty years old and still indebted. There was a time when she would've been unbearably ashamed if she knew she was going to end up owing people money.

Susan throws on a musty sweater and walks out her front door.

She is going to visit her landlord.

--

A few flights of stairs later, Susan is standing outside her landlord's apartment door. It is on the very first floor, and she lives in apartment 1A. The golden plaque reading '1A' is as tarnished as Susan's, and hanging lopsidedly.

Susan knocks determinedly, and waits for a reply.

'What?' someone yells hoarsely.

'I want to talk to you about the rent!' Susan says through the thin, brittle wood.

Someone shuffles over eagerly, and unlocks the door. 'Well, it's about time you paid the rent…'

Susan's landlord is Mrs. Francesca Portman, and she is even older than Susan herself. There are immense bags under her eyes, and her hair is snowy white and tied into a stern bun; so tight that her skin stretches. She wears a weary-looking cardigan over a flower dress, which does nothing to hide her wide berth. Her feet are bare and extraordinarily smooth, a startling contrast compared to the rest of her body. Her eyes are glowing with excitement and her fingers flex, eager to feel the crisp dollar bills in her hand.

Susan regrets that she cannot give them to her.

Susan steps in first.

Mrs. Portman glares at her viciously. 'Well, where's the money?'

A cat jumps out from behind her couch and mews curiously. Susan jumps slightly. She was never a big fan of cats.

Mrs. Portman's apartment is decorated sparsely, even worse than Susan's. The only think remotely remarkable here is a large wall with a glass cupboard resting against it. Susan moves closer to the glass cupboard, fascinated.

This is the first time Susan had been to Mrs. Portman's apartment, and she is saddened by it.

More cats wander around the apartment, purring and an ash-gray one is rubbing itself contentedly on Mrs. Portman's leg. 'Give me the money and get out already! Took you long enough to pay the rent! I was about to evict you!'

Susan diverts her attention from the glass cupboard to Mrs. Portman's irritated face, feeling so very shameful. Her cheeks burn, and she opens her mouth.

'I don't have the money yet.'

Silence hangs in the still air.

Mrs. Portman exhales.

'Right then, by next month you'll be evicted. You haven't paid for the last six months, I hardly expect you'll pay now--'

'I will pay you back.' Susan tells her steadily.

'And hell might freeze over.' Mrs. Portman snorts dismissively.

'I will this time.' Susan reassures her rather desperately. It feels horrible to have Mrs. Portman have such a bad impression of her.

'Look, I only have three other tenants in this apartment, and you're the only one who's not paying! I'm nearly broke now! Look at the state of my apartment!' Mrs. Portman shouts accusingly.

'I swear.' Susan makes an oath, one that she will keep.

Mrs. Portman breathes deeply for a while, sounding rather like a rhinoceros. 'Right. You had better pay.'

Susan smiles weakly, and turns toward the glass cupboard again. It is filled with golden trophies, some large and some with large ribbons attached to their smooth handles Each are magnificently well preserved and it is obvious Mrs. Portman treasured them very much. Susan gets that Mrs. Portman feels rather uncomfortable about this glass cupboard.

'That cupboard's private, that.' Mrs. Portman says, and she hobbles over, hands tightly gripping a wooden walking-stick.

Susan nears the cupboard and sees 'First Prize, Painting' engraved neatly on one particularly large trophy. And the next, 'Champion, Junior Level Drawing Competition'. Susan's jaw drops.

Mrs. Portman shuffles over to cupboard and stands protectively in front of it. 'Stop looking.' she says, less irritable and more desperate now.

Susan complies, and steps away politely.

'You're a painter?' she asks timidly, she might have stood taller than Mrs. Portman, but she still rather frightened Susan. Maybe it was because of her face, which was currently screwed up in an expression of extreme annoyance.

'That's none of your business.' Mrs. Portman snaps, and she walks over to the front door to let Susan out. Susan doesn't know why, but she feels rather intrigued by the numerous trophies displayed there.

'Please tell me about the trophies.' Susan pleads.

Mrs. Portman stabbed her walking-stick on the ground very impatiently. 'I used to be a painter, all right? Now get out.'

'Why aren't you still painting?' Susan asks, and she walks over to the front door slowly. Mrs. Portman's wasted face crumples into indescribable pain for a very, very brief moment.

'I've stopped.' she near whispers, and hurries Susan out. She shuts the door with a loud bang behind Susan's figure.

--

Susan fingers the locket around her neck while she walks to Lucy's home in a daydream, thinking up various reasons why Mrs. Portman seemed to evasive about her painting.

She looks down, and grimaces when she sees her seedy clothing. For some reason, this bothers her a lot. Mostly because it reminds her forcibly of Mrs. Portman. As much as Susan hates to admit it, Mrs. Portman is exactly the type of woman Susan would've became if not for The List. Bitter, resentful, and cooping herself up inside her apartment to mope away.

Susan feels a stab of pity and compassion for Mrs. Portman, and resolves to find out the mystery of the trophies.

She wiggles a toe, and realizes with some wry amusement that her toe pokes out of her ancient loafers. _It's been ages since I went shopping for new clothes, _Susan realizes, surprised.

She eventually reaches Lucy's home, and this time Robert is absent.

Adam is with Katie in the kitchen, and both of them are laughing and talking. Susan lets herself in, and waves to Katie when she passes by the kitchen. Katie waves back amiably and continues talking to Adam.

Susan finds Lucy in the living-room, bored out of her wits. She sags lifelessly in an armchair and fiddles around with a (broken) yo-yo, and sighing. She perks up when Susan smiles, and runs to hug Susan. 'Mrs. Pevensie! I'm so bored. Glad you're here!' she grins, and pouts. 'Mommy and Uncle Adam are in the kitchen, ignoring me.'

Susan laughs, and ruffles Lucy's yellow hair. She yawns, and cuddles further into Susan.

'I want a story,' Lucy tells Susan, and Susan sits down on the soft, plushy armchair, trying to think of one.

She thinks of Narnia.

Susan stares into mid-air for a moment, and wonders if she is ready enough for this. She isn't entirely sure if she still believes. The memory of her siblings bring a tear to her eyes, and Lucy looks at her nanny rather expectantly.

She takes a deep, deep breath, and tries to gather more courage.

She knows she ready.

'Once, there were four brothers and sisters, and they were sent to a professor's mansion many years ago…' Susan begins, and Lucy squirms in anticipation.

Susan tells Lucy everything, from the lamppost to Mr. Tumnus, from the White Witch to Aslan. Her heart beats a faster tune whenever she mentions she great, magnificent Lion, and she cannot help but feel unworthy of mentioning his name, after all that she had done.

Lucy is hooked on Susan's story, and she hangs onto her every word, gasping and squealing in delight at the right moments. Lucy shivers every time she mentions the White Witch and she smiles joyfully when Susan's finishes her tale with the four young siblings crowned as the rightful Kings and Queens.

Susan talks till her mouth is dry, and her heart swells with every sentence she utters. It feels almost painful, and Susan nearly sheds a tear at one point of her story. She realizes with a great, shuddering dart of pain that she still remembers every single detail about Narnia, the leaves on the trees, the green moss on rocks, the way leaves crunched under her feet when she walked in the lush forests.

Lucy sighs disappointedly when Susan's tale ends.

'I wonder if they ever went back to Narnia?' Lucy wonders out loud, and her eyes blink sleepily. 'Oh, yes they did. A year later, in fact.' Susan smiles.

'I wonder if grown-ups would ever believe in Narnia?' Lucy asks, and she rubs her eyes blearily.

'I doubt it, dearie.'

'Do you believe then, Mrs. Pevensie?' she questions her innocently.

Susan finds that she cannot answer.

Susan carries Lucy gently up the stairs to her bedroom. Adam and Katie have mysteriously disappeared and are nowhere to be found. Susan sets Lucy gently down on her bed, and Lucy clutches at her pillow contentedly, and her breathing evens out.

Susan lies down on the carpeted ground, and looks around idly, trying not to think about Narnia. Her eyes settle on a wardrobe at the corner of Lucy's bedroom, and Susan's breath catches in her throat. It looks nothing like the Wardrobe, but Susan cannot help but feel a certain sense of longing and crippling regret coursing through her weakened veins.

She picks herself up shakily, and walks over to the wardrobe. She opens up the doors, and climbs inside, tears pooling inside her eyes. Lucy's clothes aren't many, so there is much space for Susan to move around. It has a slightly musty smell and very soothing.

Susan huddles at the very end of the wardrobe, and caresses the hard wood at he back of the wardrobe, feeling its smoothness and it makes her feel more soothed. Tears seep silently from beneath her closed eyelids, and she sobs; dry, hard sobs.

Pain rips through her entire body, and she weeps for everything she has ever lost.

Her siblings.

Her parents.

Her husband.

Her only child.

It is a long list, and Susan hates that it is so. She hates it with a passion. Hate and devastation bubble around her uncontrollably, and Susan curls up tighter, and ends up in a fetal position in Lucy's wardrobe.

Her hot tears stain her cheeks, and Susan makes no attempt to wipe them away.

What good would it do, anyway?

Susan cries herself to sleep.

--

When Susan wakes up, eventually, her eyes are crusted over with dry tears, and they hurt so. Susan palms the crust away forcibly. She pushes open the wardrobe doors with some reluctance, and sees that Lucy is still asleep.

Trying to be as silent as she possibly can, Susan creeps out of Lucy's doorway and shuts the door behind her with a silent 'click'. Susan hears some pitter-patter sounds in the distance and realizes that it must be raining.

_It's getting late, anyway, _and Susan gathers up her belongings to walk back home.

Home.

Where was her home, anyway?

Her apartment never truly felt like home, and yet she had called it 'home' for the last forty years or so.

She opens up a small umbrella she keeps in her coat, and opens the front door. Katie and Adam are still gone. The rain outside is fairly heavy, and Susan prepares her umbrella. Right before she presses the button on the umbrella, she looks forward and sees something she knows she will never forget.

Katie and Adam, kissing in the rain.

Both of them have their arms wrapped around each other, and they are soaked to the skin. Katie's hair sticks to her forehead. Adam twirls Katie around, and she laughs; a sound of pure, unadulterated joy. Their kisses are nothing like the steamy, passionate ones she has seen on the television lately, with plenty of groping to boot.

Katie has her arm lightly curled around Adam's neck and both Adam's arms are places respectfully at her waist. Their kisses are light and on the lips.

Susan knows that this is as close to true love as it will ever get.

Plenty of other people pass by; some of them disapproving, some of them smiling, some of them howling their appreciation. Katie and Adam took no notice, both lost in their own world

Susan stands there for another moment or so, not wanting to disturb them.

Adam and Katie looked so darn happy together.

Well, the world needed more happiness anyway.

And as Susan eventually opens the umbrella and walks away with a smile on her face and shoes splashing in the rainwater, she knows that there might just be some hope for the world after all. While she walks back, she thinks of a time when she thought she was once in love, too.

--

After Joseph died, Susan and Nate's marriage simply dried up. There were no more tears to shed and Susan simply floated throughout the apartment, despairing until she was quite sure that even Nate was tired of it. Even so, he never mentioned it. Then there was nothing left to say. Susan talked to Nate less and less, and conversation between them was awkward and stilted.

The tension in the apartment grew increasingly tense.

After Nate came back from work, he would go to the kitchen straight after and wait for dinner, usually very simple and easy-to-cook. Nate never complained but Susan knew he deserved much better.

Susan felt increasingly worse day by day.

She stopped trying altogether now.

And those two lovers, who once exchanged their closest secrets and shared passionate kisses in the dark, now slept in seperate bedrooms and became total strangers.

Such was life.

Susan had tried to save her marriage, of course: if she didn't have Nate, who else did she have? She compensated by dressing up a little nicer when his colleagues came over, by baking him a small cake during his birthday, all those little stuff. Nate only thanked Susan politely and gave her a peck on her cheek. The sort you gave your boisterous auntie when she demanded a kiss.

Susan eventually gave up too.

But deep down, Susan knew she still loved him. Maybe not true love, but Nate was still important to her.

But in the end, not even love could triumph over the inevitable.

Nate died, anyway, and there was nothing Susan could've done to stop it.

--

That night, Susan tosses and turns in bed, images of a happy her and Nate deliberately tortring her in her tumultuous mind.

* * *

**Author's Note: **To xcupcakex, I hope you liked this one better! To the others, ENJOY! And don't forget to leave a review.


	12. Sunset

**Author's Note: **I'm sorry for the lack of updates! I've been away for a week (vacation) and the Wi-Fi in the hotel is pretty expensive so… yeah. There's my excuse. A pretty pathetic one, if you ask me. Enjoy…?

'_Don't be afraid to live your live to the fullest.'  
__**Anonymous**_

_**--**_

Susan sits at her kitchen table, enjoying the way morning sunshine filters cleanly through the cheery curtains. She feels serene and calm, and she sits heavily on the only chair at the table, occasionally raising a stained coffee mug. She knows that coffee probably isn't the best thing to drink at her age, but she does so anyway. Just one of those habits.

Just before she sets out to Lucy's home, Susan looks up at her apartment building. It looks weary and haggard, just like its landlady. Just looking at it gave you the feeling of a derelict and lonely place. Susan is endlessly guilty about this; maybe if she had paid her rent every month, Mrs. Portman would lead a better life, at least.

Everyone is at Lucy's home now, but Adam, Katie and Lucy are all upstairs when she reaches. Not wanting to intrude, Susan goes to the kitchen to maybe get herself a nice cup of tea when she sees Robert there, reading the newspapers and peering over the tops of his glasses.

'Good morning,' Robert greets, and gives her a warm smile. Susan smiles back automatically, and she pulls out a chair to sit down, opposite of Robert.

'Are Katie and Adam together upstairs?' Susan asks dryly, and she is pretty sure that even Robert knows what's going on between the both of them.

'Yes. The only reason Adam ever comes here is mostly for Katie now.' Robert chuckles. 'The poor kid deserves it anyway, he's been really unlucky in love, from what I've heard from him.'

'Why? What happened?' Susan asks, curiosity piqued. She might as well just get to know Adam better.

'Mostly chooses girls that treat him like rubbish. You know, use him and all that.' Robert makes a dismissive motion. 'Katie seems decent. She'd be good for him, at any rate.'

A comfortable silence falls, and Susan takes out The List again, when Robert is immersed in today's paper. There is only a few more she has to complete, but she has left the hardest for the last. There is only one more task that is reasonably easy: _10. Watch the sunset._

The sunset.

Now, Susan has only vague memories of what she once thought was the most breath-taking sights on earth. The way the sun dipped under the horizon and its light… Susan would give anything to see it again.

She sighs, and when she puts the List down she finds Robert gazing at her curiously. She blushes furiously; what if he asked about the List? It was strictly private, anyway.

'Anything troubling you?' Robert asked genially, and he folded up the paper with neat, practiced moves, the crisp paper crinkling noisily.

'No, nothing.' Susan replies hastily, and pats the List unconsciously with her fingers.

'What was that you were just holding?' Robert folds his arms expectantly.

'Just a piece of paper…' Susan trails off, embarrassed.

'Come on, it can't be that bad. I heard the sigh. Was it a bill? Maybe even a letter?' Robert prods gently, wearing a gentle smile. Susan sighs again, giving in.

'It's a List. More specifically, a List of things to do before I… kick the bucket.' Susan grins inwardly, but Robert's expression takes on a dramatic change. He retreats, and looks rather guilty. 'I hope I wasn't intruding, or anything…' he apologizes hurriedly. 'I didn't know it was that personal.'

'It's because… you know, I don't have much time left.' Susan shrugs and tries to pass it off as nothing, even though her lungs throb even as she speaks.

'You _do _know that I would give anything to save you right now?' Robert questions somberly. 'It's terrible, this cancer.'

Susan thinks for a while.

'It's okay, really. Although, I might need your help with something.' Susan grins, and Robert looks faintly terrified. 'What is it?'

'We might need to take a trip to the beach again.'

--

It is thirty minutes later, and Susan and Robert sneak out of the house again, much like a few days ago. But this time, they don't take the car.

'How are we going to get there?' Susan asks, loose tendrils of hair fluttering in the freshly scented spring air. There are plenty of people out, bustling as they reach a more busier part of the road. Robert is wearing a ridiculous hat, a green cotton shirt and some black pants. Susan giggles yet again at the hat.

'You'll know once we get there.' Robert grins toothily. 'Sunset, huh?'

'Yes, I've never really looked at one properly in the last forty years.' Susan frowns to herself, and continues walking. 'I hear beaches are the best places for them.' Susan adds uncertainly.

'They certainly are. It'll take your breath away.'

The people around them get more crowded, and Susan is frequently jostled. All of them seemed to be heading in the same direction. Susan looks up, peering for any sort of indication as to where they're heading towards to.

She catches sight of a circular sign hanging outside some sort of tunnel, and she recognizes it. She stops short and gawps.

_London Underground._

She can't.

Trains.

Susan hasn't gone near one since the crash. Images flash before her eyes; Peter, Edmund and Lucy dead, with blood running down their faces and eyes unseeing; train whizzing around the corner and colliding with an almighty crash; nine shiny caskets being lowered into ground; her empty apartment; the night after the funeral when she had cried her eyes out.

Susan's lungs ache as she takes big breathes, trying not to hyperventilate. She stands there, frozen, staring at the swinging sign and trembling all over. People push by her impatiently, eager to catch their early morning trains.

Susan lapses into another memory.

--

A twenty two year old Susan Pevensie stepped between blue plastic bags laid side by side on the cold, black road. She was wearing red, shiny heels and a devastatingly beautiful black dress. Heads turned wherever she walked but Susan didn't revel in the attention and she doubted she would anymore.

She walked, numb, between rows of cold lifeless bodies, clutching at her handbag and looking mechanically at those corpses, as lights flash behind her and thousands of onlookers had came to dawdle curiously at the train station, clearly uncaring that nearly thousands of people had died in this crash.

Susan knew nine of them.

Nine of the people she held dearest in her heart.

Susan suppressed tears as she randomly chose one body and half-wished, half-dreaded at it will be a face she recognizes. She flipped up the blue cloth and found herself looking at the untouched body of a young girl, eyes closed at looking so very angelic.

How very unfair that a child this young would have to suffer and die. Then again, if she had died with her parents, no one else would've suffered or been in pain.

Susan had been left behind.

She was the one that had to be damned to suffer for all her life and she had never quite recovered.

Susan stood up again, covering the child's face gently, and a tear dripped down off the tip of her powdered nose. She walked on, and passed plenty of grieving family, some with crowds standing around a body, some with only a solitary person crying their hearts out, caressing the body.

This station's entrance had been barred off with yellow tape, and so has the area around it. Officers littered the place, and whistles screech through the air, piercing Susan's ears.

Susan bent down again, heels digging into the road. She brushed some of her hair back, and bit her lip, hand trembling. She chose another blue sack, and opened it haltingly. She revealed a pale face, with purple bruises around the neck. Her coppery hair was tangled up and it wreathed her face like a deathly halo. A thin strip of blood ran down her temple, and her lips are shockingly blue, and so is her terrible, terrible skin.

Lucy.

--

Forty years later, Susan feels so much pain and sorrow. She is crying in the middle of the road, crying helpless tears. She stumbles forward after someone bumps into her too hard and she feels someone grip her outstretched hand firmly, as he led her away from the irritated throng of people.

'Are you okay, Susan?' Robert asks concernedly. 'Are… are you crying?'

Susan cannot say anything.

She cries so hard her whole body shakes along. The image of a dead Lucy is still burned painfully in her head, and it resurfaces again. Susan sobs even harder, and Robert soothes her by rubbing comforting circles on her back, murmuring, 'It's okay, everything's going to be alright.'

Such meaningless words.

Susan attempts to calm herself, but her vision swirls in confusing colors and blurry lines. She blinks rapidly, trying to dispel her dizziness. She clutches onto Robert's shirt and her tears slow. Robert holds her close, and Susan feels a dart of gratefulness.

'Let's bring you home.' he murmurs, and hails a taxi.

A canary-yellow cab speeds by, and stops abruptly. 'Where to?' a middle-aged man with a slight beard pokes his head out of his window, teeth clutching a smoking cigar. Robert shuffles over and opens the cab door with some difficulty, and Susan feels ever so guilty for causing so much difficulties for Robert to handle. He didn't have to, but he still did, anyway.

Susan climbs in, and settles herself heavily on the warm, leather seats. She cannot bear to look at Robert, for some reason. Instead, she looks out of the window, tears still wobbling in her eyes.

The engine revs, and they are off.

Susan lets her mind wander.

--

She stands frozen, in the crisp autumn air as she watches nine wooden caskets being lowered into earth. She is vaguely aware of someone playing a sad tune on an organ in the distance but everything is muted. She sees nothing in her mind's eye except the smooth, polished wood of the coffins. She has a strong, uncontrollable urge to stop this whole ghastly thing, to open those horrible wooden boxes, to scream and shake them, '_Why did you leave me? How could this have happened?_'

But she doesn't.

Everyone around her are bending their heads down in silence to pay respect. There aren't many people at the funeral, just a few close relatives, neither which Susan is close to. She has a vague memory of a fat, pudgy woman standing a little distance from her, bawling her head off, drenching a handkerchief that she brought along. In fact, almost everyone around her is sniffling.

_Babies, _Susan thinks. _What are they crying about? They didn__'__t even know them well._

Her own eyes stay dry.

She knows what they are saying about her behind her back; that she didn't care about her siblings at all, or Mother and Father, or Aunt Polly and Professor Kirke. Susan doesn't care anymore. Nothing in this world matters anymore.

She remembers the eulogy Father Harlem gave a few moments ago. Mostly he rambled on about how tragic this incident was, how sudden that nearly a hundred lives had been taken because of this railway accident. He described everyone, saying that Father had been a good man and a good husband, and that Mother was a good mother and had raised four kids good and proper. He told them about the works of Professor Kirke, the numerous books he had written over the course of his life and of Aunt Polly, the jolly old woman that every child living on the same street as her had grown to love her. Eustace; who had finally become a good child in the end. And of course, Jill, Eustace's best friend.

He also spoke of her siblings.

Susan could not bear to hear about them anymore. Hadn't she been hurt enough already? She tuned out Father Harlem's voice and instead focused on the scenery around her. The funeral service was held in a small graveyard near the very English countryside that Professor Kirke had once lived in, that rambling mansion Susan had loved so much. She had abruptly noticed a rundown ruin in the distance, and she was going to look at it properly but then it was time.

Time for final goodbyes.

She looks at the coffins once more, and they have almost disappeared under the dirt. She tries not to think about the fact that nine people she had loved most in this world were leaving her.

Forever.

She could not stand it anymore.

The pain.

So she ran.

Susan abruptly turns on her heel and walks out the sprawling gates of the graveyard, unaware of where she was heading, where she was going. Anywhere was better than _there_.

She hears shouts, calls behind her, saying, 'Come back, Susie!'

_It__'__s Susan, _Susan thinks but she does not correct those strangers, instead she hurries on. The cold air stings her face and she feels cleansed. Her black mourning dress flaps in the breeze and she feels free, freer than ever.

Susan never went back to the graveyard again.

--

Susan stares blankly out of the window, hands clasped tightly in her lap. Smoke fills her vision, smoke from the taxi driver's damned cigar. Why was he smoking, anyway? Didn't he know that he would eventually end up like her?

Dying.

How final.

They round a corner, and Robert's home comes into view. Susan is momentarily surprised; she expected to return to Lucy's home. Robert nods, and the cab stops. He fishes out some money and hands it over to the cab driver. Susan opens the cab door, stumbling out, still feeling disoriented and just plain exhausted.

Robert leads her to his door, and unlocks it. Susan steps into the threshold, and its warm interior calms her. No one is home and Susan still feels rather puzzled as to why Robert brought her back here.

'Are you alright now?' Robert questions cautiously, as he closes the door behind him with a melodious _click._

'Yes.' Susan replies, voice cracking.

'Would you still like to see the sunset?' Robert asks tentatively.

Susan frowns. 'Yes, but how? We're in the city now, aren't we?'

Robert grins, showing off more than one gold tooth. 'I know the perfect place.' he takes Susan by the hand, and she cannot help but giggle weakly.

He brings her upstairs quickly, to the second floor. Susan catches sight of an immaculate hallway, with plenty of pictures on the wall, but they pass by to fast for Susan to get a good look. They climb up another flight of stairs, and they are in the attic.

The attic is surprisingly clean, without any dust or grime. The floor is made of hard, burnished wood and there are two large windows, with late afternoon sunshine filtering through. There are boxes here and there, cleanly sealed, and various bits of furniture: a broken chair, a wonky lamp and a tricycle with two wheels gone. Susan wonders just who did the tricycle belong to.

Robert heads towards the window on the left, and opens it with ease. The sunlight is shining directly in Susan's eyes now, and she squints. To her horror, Robert climbs out of the window.

'What are you doing?!' she squawks, and pulls on the bottoms of Robert's pants. He laughs from above.

'There's a ladder here, Susan. Don't worry, I'll come back for you.' his legs disappear and there is heavy thumps from above. Susan stands there, gawping.

'Ah, the view's amazing from up here,' Susan hears Robert sigh happily. 'Come on up, Su.'

Susan stands still for a moment, and her eyes close when she hears her old nickname. She smiles, and pokes her head out of the window. Robert is sitting on the tiled rooftop, bending downwards.

'There's a small ladder here.' Robert points, and Susan carefully lifts herself out of the window, silently chanting '_don't look down_' to herself. She places her hands at the window ledge, and twists herself so that she is now sitting on the window ledge.

'Careful, now.' Robert warns from above. 'Those tiles can be tricky.'

'Why is the ladder even here?' Susan asks, as she struggles to stand on the window ledge. She looks up, and there is a short, metal ladder right beside her, about five feet long. She sets a foot on the first rung, and it wobbles slightly. The wind ruffles the tendrils of hair that have fallen out of place from her bun at the nape of her neck, and the wind caresses Susan's exposed neck.

'I built it.' Robert announces, barely able to keep the pride out of his voice. 'I'll tell you the full story later.'

Susan makes her way up the ladder, and every creak or groan the ladder makes causes Susan's heart to beat wildly, lest she topple three stories down onto the sidewalk. Robert reaches out a hand when Susan is on the fourth rung, and hauls her up. Susan gasps, and she kneels down on the smooth surface of the rooftop.

'Whoa.' Susan looks around. She can see just about every building in every direction she looks. The cars over the edge of the roof zoom around beneath, as small as cardboard boxes.

'Wait 'til you see the sunset.' Robert places himself comfortably in the middle of the roof, and folds his spindly legs underneath him. He pats the space beside him genially, and Susan crawls over, half-laughing and half-frozen with fear. She settles herself beside Robert, and he starts to talk.

'Me and my late wife always used to come up here for the sunsets.' Robert tells her rather solemnly.

Susan has no idea how Robert does it. How does he still find the strength to even mention his deceased loved ones when Susan can barely think of them without feeling a numbing stab of pain in her chest?

'It was her idea in the first place, you know. She told me to build the ladder, so I did.' Robert smiles distantly, mind somewhere else. 'Took me a whole day and I had garnered more than a few injuries at the end of the day-- I was never the ails and hammer type-- but it made her day.'

'That's very sweet.' Susan says thickly. 'Did you…'

Robert turns to Susan, smiling indulgently.

'Did you love her?'

Robert's smile disappears, and a tiny frown takes it's place. 'That's a rathe personal question.'

Susan's head drops, and she stammers out an apology: 'Sorry-- I was just curious…'

'It's okay,' Robert assures Susan. 'I suppose I _did _love her… but there was always another woman. I never really got over her. But me and my wife were like the best of friends.' he purses his withered lips.

Susan stays quiet. 'That's nice.'

Robert smiles. 'Yes, it was.' he sits up straight. 'Oh, look at that.' he murmurs.

Susan turns her head and she is mesmerized.

The great ball of orange fire lowers itself towards the horizon, ever majestic and magnificent. Rays of buttery yellow light scatters across the buildings and cars, enveloping them in its soft embrace. Everything seems to be bathed in yellow. Susan's jaw drops. Robert's grip on her right hand tightens considerably, and he sighs happily. 'This is what we've been waiting for.'

The sun continues to descend, and both of them bask in its majesty.

Susan unconsciously leans in closer to Robert's warm body and her body sags in relief. The sunset certainly was as fantastic as she had remembered it to be. She squints against the sunlight, and enjoys its warm rays.

If only Susan knew how hard Robert's heart was beating right now.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Yes well... I hope you liked it...? And is there an imminent romance between Robert and Susan?! Dun dun dun...


	13. The Letter

'_Love is everything it's cracked up to be. That's why people are so cynical about it. It really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for. And the trouble is, if you don't risk anything, you risk even more.'  
__**Erica Jong**_

--

Fourth of February, a Sunday.

Susan lies in bed and thinks about the date today.

It would've been Joseph's thirty-sixth birthday, Susan thinks, feeling rather jolted. As always, she stays still and thinks about how she would be now if Joseph had lived. Would she have grandchildren running about a cheery house? Would she have had other children? Would Nate still be alive?

She would never know what would've been.

She climbs out of bed with a heavy heart and a pensive mood. She goes to her nightstand, and pulls out a heavy, brown envelope. She opens it carefully, and pulls out a thin wad of money. She counts it meticulously, and comes to the amount of three hundred and twenty-three pounds ninety-three pence. She wonders briefly if she should just give this three hundred odd pounds to Mrs. Portman first.

Susan abruptly makes her decision, and eagerly shrugs on a plain cotton shirt with frightful brown pants she has always abhorred. She reminds herself to throw it away later, holds the money firmly in he cold fingers, and down to apartment 1A.

The door looks as uninviting as ever, and Susan knocks hesitantly, wondering if she came at a bad time. Soft music is emanating from somewhere inside the room; soothing music. Susan shuffles her feet and waits nervously for someone to answer the door.

Someone does, eventually, albeit a little grumpily.

'If that's you again, Jenkins, I'll--' Mrs. Portman swings the door open rather violently, and stops short when she sees Susan standing outside. 'You again!' she says rather viciously. 'What are you doing here?'

'If I may…' Susan murmurs, and she proffers her brown envelope. Mrs. Portman eyes it, astonished, and takes it from Susan slowly. 'If this is some kind of joke…' she warns, and rips the envelope open.

When she sees the colorful bills inside, Susan could've sworn that there was some moisture in her eyes. But that could've been the dull lighting, or Susan had seen wrong.

Mrs. Portman silently opens the door wider, permitting Susan to come in. Susan feels relieved; it is as though the wall between them has been demolished. She steps in, and rubs her hands.

'Thank you.' Mrs. Portman croaks, and she holds Susan's hand for a moment. Her hand is surprisingly warm and smooth, not cold and clammy like Susan was expecting. 'It appears that I have misjudged you.'

'I'll pay you back the rest when I have the money.' Susan promises.

'Thank you,' Mrs. Portman repeats. 'Do sit down.' she gestures towards the worn couch in her living room. 'I'm sorry if things look rather messy right now…' she apologizes rather awkwardly, and Susan sits down, looking around.

The cupboard is still there, but most of the trophies are gone, she notices, confused. Mrs. Portman notices her looking, but she doesn't say a thing; instead, she sits down opposite of Susan.

'I'm sorry if I'm prying but…' Susan began, twiddling her fingers. 'Why aren't you painting anymore?'

Mrs. Portman freezes up, and Susan immediately regrets her decision. It wasn't any easier for Susan to mention the past, why would it be any easier for Mrs. Portman? 'Never mind--sorry…' Susan mutters, and curses herself for her insensitivity.

Mrs. Portman smiles tightly, and she uncrosses her stockinged legs. Her snowy white hair is flying everywhere, but somehow this seems to suit her. 'That's quite alright.' she assured Susan. 'But I'm afraid that's… private.'

Susan nods, and stands up abruptly, deciding that she really couldn't bear this anymore. 'I'll just be going now, Mrs. Portman.' and Susan attempts a warm smile. 'Thank you for inviting me in.'

Mrs. Portman smiles accordingly, and leads Susan out of her apartment. 'I'm still a bit guilty about the way I treated you the last time you visit.'

'It's all in the past now.' Susan wryly quoted Robert-- this was exactly what he said when Susan had apologized to him nearly a month ago. Had it really been that short a time?

Time just seemed to fly by.

--

Susan returns to her apartment, walking around idly. It wasn't until a few hours later, when it was late afternoon, when it happened.

Susan was padding around her apartment, looking around for a book to read when she felt a cough rising in her throat. Her throat itches unbearably, and Susan coughs violently into her hand, blindly reaching around for some tissue. She cannot find any, and she lifts her hand away when the coughing finally subsides. Her palm is stained bright, obscene red, and the stench of blood, rusty and salty, begins to fill Susan's nose. Susan stares at her hand in horror.

Susan rushes to her tiny bathroom, and washes her hand in the sink. She feels her throat itch again and she coughs a second time, her entire body trembling with the force of her coughs. She feels as though she is hacking up her lungs, and Susan has a sudden vision of her failing lungs as an old man, gasping wildly for oxygen, slowly fading away.

She opens her eyes, and the white, ceramic sink is scattered with speckles of blood, and there is even blood clots here and there, disgustingly slimy and sliding off the walls of the sink. Susan hurriedly washes the blood away, wishing desperately that her disease was that easy to exterminate.

Her entire body trembles continuously even after she hacks blood. The unpleasant taste of rusty metal still resides staunchly at the back of her throat, even after countless cups of water.

It is just then that Susan realizes just how fragile her life is right now. She could've died back then is she wasn't strong enough, Susan realizes. She hastily pulls out the List, and she swears to herself that she _will _complete it, no matter what happened.

There is only four tasks left, and Susan selects one: _11. Lucy's last request._

--

It was a week before the crash, and Susan was getting ready for a night out with her closest friends. She was in her room, applying her precious makeup, enjoying the feathery feeling of a brush over her skin.

'Susan?' Lucy had asked timidly. She had grown into quite a beautiful woman, and Susan remembered being rather surprised to see that Lucy took no notice of other boys, preferring to ignore them.

Susan nodded tightly, and Lucy entered the room. It was exceedingly awkward between them, ever since Lucy had told her the absurd story of some Narnian-looking boy in princely clothing suddenly appear when the lot of them were eating dinner. Susan had rolled her eyes expressively, and completely ignored Lucy's pleas of joining them in rediscovering 'Narnia' again.

How Susan wished she had joined them.

'Just wondering if…' Lucy stammered nervously, and Susan remembered thinking rather ruefully just when their sisterly relationship had abruptly turned so sour. 'I heard you were going out later so I was wondering if you would post this letter for me?' she proffered a plain, brown envelope, with a neatly printed address up front.

Susan agreed reluctantly, and just after Lucy left Susan's room, she shoved it in a drawer, never to be touched again.

--

The letter.

Susan searches valiantly in those cardboard boxes, but this time she looks in her own. She silently wills the letter to be there; this is just one of those things she needs to complete.

Her box is considerably larger than her sibling's, filled with useless bits and bobs: broken combs, torn pages of a book, magazines and plenty more. She finds the letter wedged between the pages of an old copy of a romance story, and she pulls it out reverentially.

Inside was evidence that Lucy even existed at all.

The letter is perfectly preserved, but a little bit yellowed at the edges. The stamp is still intact. Susan aches to open it, but she denies herself this luxury. She fingers Lucy's handwriting, and she sees that the letter is addressed to a Majorie, and Susan hasn't the faintest idea who that is.

Susan picks up the letter, and hurries out of her apartment, clutching at the letter as if she would never let it go.

--

Ten minutes later, and she is standing, stationary, beside a flame red mailbox, savoring the moment. The streets are empty, and it is a relatively warm day. Susan's heart feels extraordinarily swollen, and she finds it rather hard to breathe. Her eyes fill with tears, and she remembers her little sister, Lucy.

--

Susan clutched her nightgown tightly around herself. She held the candlewick out further, peering desperately into the dark depths of the spare room. Rain pelted against the dark windowpanes of the two windows of the spare room.

It had been two days away from Narnia, and it was getting unbearable.

Susan desperately wished for the feeling of smooth, Narnian silk sweeping against her thighs; the feeling of security a bow and an arrow gave her; the utter joy of riding bareback on a horse, hair flying in the summer breeze.

London paled in comparison.

Susan was homesick, and achingly so.

She stepped across the hard, wooden floors of the room, eyes focused on a large, smooth wardrobe made of burnished wood at the very end of the room. It seemed to smile at her, like it was welcoming a long lost friend. Susan eagerly gripped on its wooden handles, and caressed them lovingly first. How painful it was, to be torn from your one and only home…

Life back in London was drastically different. The first night was bewildering, to say the least. The four of them: Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy had huddled together in a heap, shivering in bed although it was a relatively warm night. To think that in a single moment everything and everyone they loved was swiped away from them, like a carpet being tugged from under you.

Susan opened the wardrobe door carefully, and tried not to get her hopes up. Still, her eyes roved the inside of the wardrobe hungrily, trying to see beyond those fur coats they had once worn all those years ago.

Susan held the candle wick aloft, and its flame flickered wildly, casting mysterious shadows on either side of the wardrobe walls. She pinched the flame away with shaking fingers, and placed a slippered foot on the firm wood. She slowly stepped in, pushing away silky fur coats of all shapes and sizes. Her heart swelled painfully, and constricted. Her heartbeat quickened as she slowly reaches the very end of the wardrobe.

'You won't get in again that way.' a tinny voice said rather sadly, and Susan whipped around, jostling more than few fir coats in the process. Lucy was in her prink, frilly nightgown and she was also holding her own candle wick, tears dripping out of her rapidly blinking eyes.

'Lucy…' Susan began, and she stood still, and a single tear rolled down her cheek. 'What do you mean?'

Lucy wiped her eyes furiously with the back of her palm. 'I tried yesterday. The professor told me that there would be other opportunities, but we would never be able to go back by wardrobe again.'

Susan saw red now; who cared what the professor thought? She walked further down blindly, and her hands met solid wood at the back. Susan's tears increased, and a dry sob escaped her. Lucy dropped her candlewick with a loud clang, and went inside the wardrobe along with Susan. Susan slid down to the bottom of the wardrobe, and hugged her knees, desperate for some assurance that Narnia was real, that Narnia existed.

Lucy wrapped her arms around Susan's mobile form, and cried along with her.

It wasn't until much later that Mrs. Macready had found two sisters with dry tear tracks on their pale cheeks, holding on to each other for dear life.

--

Susan slides the letter halfway down the slot in the mailbox, hesitating. Would it be better if Susan kept it for her own? It was highly possible that this Majorie wasn't living in London, or that she had already passed away.

Susan would never forgive herself if she never completed this task, however.

With a sharp intake of breath, Susan pushes the letter inside, and hears a slight whoosh as it slides down and joins the pile of other letters. Susan stands there for a while, basking in the late afternoon sunshine, and she slowly heads back home.

She knows that the letter would never complete its intended purpose, but her heart feels a lot more lighter as she makes her way back to her apartment, missing her little sister a lot more than she could've imagined.

* * *

**Author's Note: **It'll pick up pace in the next chapter, I promise. Will you guys be a little bewildered if I make Susan go up in a hot-air balloon? grins

I'll be adding another sub-plot, and it has something to do with Mrs. Portman and Majorie. If anyone remembers, Majorie was mentioned in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. If anyone could tell me what her surname was, I would really appreciate it. I can't really go check it myself, because my copy's gone. Disappeared. Vanished. Out-of-sight. Yes, I know you get the point. :D


	14. Marjorie Preston

_  
Everyone wants a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next.  
**Gilda Radner**_

--

_Knock._

_Knock._

Susan stirs in bed. The knocking sound continues, reverberating through Susan's exhausted mind. She distinctly hears dry sobs from outside, and liquid sloshing around in a bottle. 'Open up!' someone shouts, and Susan cracks open her eyes. She looks at the tiny clock on her nightstand, and sees that it is four in the morning, hardly a time for anyone to be visiting.

Susan is suddenly terrified; what if it was a thief?

'Susan!' the person yells loudly, voice thick and choked. Susan recognizes the voice.

Susan gets out of bed, shivering. She hobbles over to her front door, and the wild breathing gets loudly. Susan opened the door after unlocking various locks, and there Mrs. Portman was, holding a green bottle labeled 'Scotch' and wearing her nightgown. Her eyes are bloodshot, and her hair is flying everywhere. She is swaying slightly on her feet, and she stares blearily up at Susan. Susan notices that the scotch bottle is half-empty.

Susan feels rather disoriented; why would Mrs. Portman come and visit her in the middle of the night? She gapes at Mrs. Portman for a while before the drunken woman forcefully barges in Susan's apartment, banging her shin on the door frame in the process.

'Mrs. Portman!' Susan exclaims, and shakes the sleep from her body.

'Susan!' she slurs loudly, and her voice bounces off the walls of Susan's cramped apartment. Susan notices that there are tear tracks on her wrinkled cheeks; it is evident that she had been crying.

Mrs. Portman stumbles to her living-room, and Susan hurries after her, stretching her arms out, alarmed, when Mrs. Portman twirls around and nearly falls flat on the floor, a trip that would certainly cause a lot of damage to a woman her age. Susan flips open a switch, and the living-room is illuminated.

'Susan…' she croaks, and sinks down on Susan's red couches. 'I have something to tell you.' she closes her eyes, and motions for Susan to sit down too.

Susan is still in a state of shock, and she attempts to negotiate with Mrs. Portman; she obviously had no idea what she was doing. 'Why not tell me tomorrow, Mrs. Portman?' she wheedles, and walks over to her stationary form. 'I'm sure it could wait until tomorrow.'

'No!' Mrs. Portman says loudly. 'This is important… I want to…' she slurs, and slumps down on the couch. For a moment, Susan thinks she might have fallen asleep. She tiptoes over, and Mrs. Portman's finger lifts up wearily, pointing towards the char opposite of Mrs. Portman. Susan sits down reluctantly, and waits to see what Mrs. Portman had to say.

_This is ridiculous, _Susan thought fleetingly.

'Have you ever done anything you've regretted for the rest of your life?' Mrs. Portman utters, and she lifts her head up, looking at Susan straight in the eye.

Susan feels her heart stop, and she closes her eyes.

'Yes.' she says.

'Well, whatever you've done, it's nothing compared to me.' Mrs. Portman says darkly, suddenly sober.

If only she knew.

Mrs. Portman takes a swig of scotch. She gulps it down noisily, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. Susan waits patiently, heart thumping. She gets the feeling that this conversation might not turn out the way she thought it would.

'I was born on the fourteenth day of March.' she begins. 'My mum went to hell and back with me; she said that I didn't want to come out.' she chuckles humorlessly. 'The second one came out after me.'

Susan stares, brain working furiously.

'Yes, I had a twin.' Mrs. Portman blinks rapidly, eliminating salty tears from her eyes. 'Her name was Geraldine, and I loved--no, love-- her.' she let out rattling breath. 'We were the very best of friends. We dressed alike; we had the same hobbies; we loved the same things… I still remember how we used to fight over the grape flavored sherbets we bought at the local candy store. Candy was dirt-cheap back in those days, you know.'

Mrs. Portman is on a roll now. She falls silent for a while.

'Then…?' Susan urges.

'She died.' she gasps, and starts to cry. Her weeping wracks her entire body, and she buries her face in her hands. The bottle of scotch falls to the floor, Susan watches as it splinters into a million green pieces, some of them glinting in the white light. How easily things break.

'She got cancer when we were twenty-six, and she died when she was twenty-eight. She was so young. Oh, Geraldine.' Mrs. Portman moans through her tears. Susan stands up, and finds that her own eyes are filled with tears. She hugs Mrs. Portman, and cries along with her. They share both of their sorrows, their regrets, and pour them out.

'There's more.' Mrs. Portman wipes her face roughly. Susan leans back, kneeling on the hard floor. 'You saw those trophies in my apartment.'

Susan nods.

'Geraldine was always the one who encouraged me to join all those competitions back then. I was the shier one, and Geraldine was the more outgoing one, but I never resented her for it. I only used to draw for her. Then she died, and I simply… stopped drawing. After her funeral, I tried to sit in front of a blank piece of canvas and try to paint again, but all I came up with was a shiny casket. I threw the canvas away; it was the very last picture I ever painted. I've never touched a paint brush since.'

Susan wants so much to squeeze all this pain out of Mrs. Portman's life right now; and the fact that she still kept all those trophies after all these years hurt even more. She pats her withered hand, and hates that this is the only thing she can do right now.

'I'm so very sorry for your loss.' Susan whispers. She debates telling Mrs. Portman about her own losses, but then decides that she already has a lot weighing down her world-weary shoulders.

'I had a baby daughter. She was born out of wedlock.' Mrs. Portman states abruptly. 'She was six when Geraldine died--' she chokes on the word "died". '--and she suffered the most. I retreated into myself after my twin sister died; it was as though nothing in my life mattered anymore. I neglected her, and both of us grew further apart. I stopped cooking entirely, and the house was in shambles. It wasn't long before the neighbors started prying, and they found out how I was treating my only daughter. The authorities came, and they took her away from me.' she sobs. 'The worst part was I didn't even try to stop them.

'I still remember the look she gave me when she left. I was sitting down in the driveway of my house, and she turned around. She gave me a look full of-- of everything. Guilt, accusation, blame, fear, uncertainty. It broke my heart. I never heard from her since. The authorities phoned time to time to tell me how she was doing, and they even sent pictures. I never looked at them.'

Mrs. Portman falls silent this time, alone in her grieving.

Susan is utterly horrified. To have a child taken away from you like that… it was inhuman. Susan tried to imagine what life was like for Mrs. Portman for all these years: alone in her apartment, trying to fend for herself in this world.

Susan strokes her hand in comforting circles on Mrs. Portman's back, and hopes that this helps a little bit. Mrs. Portman's sobs lessen, and twenty minutes pass.

'I'm sorry if I've been a nuisance.' Mrs. Portman speaks, her voice gravelly.

'No… I just wish I could do more.' Susan says truthfully, suppressing tears.

'I'll best be going now. And thank you for letting me in your apartment.' Mrs. Portman thanks her, her voice full of emotion.

'Not at all.' Susan insists.

She opens the front door for Mrs. Portman, and she exits.

Susan is struck with a question, and she calls out hurriedly before Mrs. Portman disappears down the stairs.

'Mrs. Portman! What was your daughter's name?'

The old woman pauses, her right leg out. 'I named her Majorie Portman. The authorities phoned me a year later and told me she had changed her surname to Preston, so that she could deny ever being related to me.' she sighs deeply, and continues down the stairs. 'Goodnight, Susan.'

Majorie Preston.

_Majorie Preston._

Susan is bowled over by the coincidence, and she smiles widely. An unfamiliar joy rises unbearably somewhere in her chest, and she rejoices at the fact that she might actually be able to do something for Mrs. Portman.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Please tell me what you think. Is the fact that Majorie Preston is Mrs. Portman's daughter a little too cheesy? Or is it fairly okay? The next chapter will feature Majorie writing an extremely confused letter back to Susan, demanding just who this is (she knows that Lucy already died in the train crash). Susan writes back, and… dun dun dun! Oh, and thank you to all those who thoughtfully sent me Majorie Preston's full name!

Oh yes, and I've started a new fic, _Deadly Happenings_, and this is the full summary.

_The four Kings and Queens have ruled over Narnia for three years, and the land is at peace. But when a chambermaid is found brutally murdered in Cair Paravel, Susan sets out to solve this mystery. But how long will it take for Susan to realize that she might be the next victim of the vicious killer?_

Well? Interested? It should be out in the next coupla hours so keep an eye out! I've the whole plot completely mapped out, so you can bet I'm going to finish this! Don't worry, I won't neglect this fic. :)


	15. Hot Air Balloon

_Let children walk with Nature, let them see the beautiful blendings and communions of death and life, their joyous inseparable unity, as taught in woods and meadows, plains and mountains and streams of our blessed star, and they will learn that death is stingless indeed, and as beautiful as life.  
**Anonymous**_

**--**

_1. Do something terrifying._

Susan stares at the first task on her List, a little amused. Really, did she need more terror in her life? She was terrified of a lot of things. Many of them rather irrational, like her long-lasting fear of clowns. Susan ponders this task for a moment, and decides she'll get to it when she has the chance.

Like every morning for the past few days, Susan hurries to her front door and checks for anything on her worn _Welcome _mat. There's no letter for her today, either. She straightens up after a thorough check of the door's surroundings and winces when her back cracks in the silence.

It is Wednesday, and Susan sets off for Lucy's home.

When she reaches, Katie, Adam and Robert are bustling around, evidently preparing for something.

'Hello!' Susan calls out, and is warmly welcomed by Lucy, who hugs her around her thickening (sadly) waist. But Susan knows that it is hardly rational to expect to retain the looks she had in her teens.

'We're going to the carnival today, Mrs. Pevensie!'

Susan looks up in surprise, into the laughing eyes of Katie. She nods. 'Lucy's been wanting to go to that annual carnival a few streets away for a long time now. Would you like to come?'

Susan thinks for a moment, hesitating. The very thought of being surrounded by a pulsing crowd sickens her for a moment, and then she sees Lucy's face. She looks so hopeful, and so reminiscent of her Lucy whenever she wanted a bedtime story that her breath catches in her throat for a moment.

'I'll go.' Susan says softly, and gives Lucy a kiss on her head. Susan knows that it is probably very selfish of her, but Susan wishes desperately that it was her own Lucy that she was kissing.

Lucy gives a delighted squeal.

Twenty minutes later, and everyone is walking on the pavement outside, enjoying the spring sunshine. It caresses the back of Susan's tense neck, and she feels extra warm inside. She grips Lucy's hand tightly as she skips cheerily, pausing every once in a while to touch blooming flowers.

Susan can already see the carnival from a street away. Balloons hover in the air, in extraordinary shapes and sizes. There are many booths here and there, all of them brightly colored. She can hear a buzz of noise coming from the carnival. She breathes a sigh of relief, for the people there aren't many. Lucy grows increasingly excited as they walk closer.

Susan squints; she spots something in the distance: a teardrop shaped silhouette against the clear blue sky.

The carnival is set up in an empty field. Susan looks about interestedly, and she remembers a few low-scale fairs her siblings went to when she was small. She didn't really enjoy them, if Susan remembered correctly.

Lucy jumps around, and starts to pointing at everything, words failing her utter joy. There are candy stands, various game booths and even a mini Ferris wheel. Children run all over the place, and many mothers in hot pursuit of them. There are speakers every few feet, and they are blaring out a bright tune. Katie starts laughing at Lucy's speechlessness, and ruffles her hair warmly. 'Go knock yourself out, kid.'

Susan hasn't the faintest idea what that means but Lucy immediately speeds away, giggling quite madly. The four of them follow her, but both Katie and Adam become rather distracted when they see the Ferris wheel. Robert winks at Susan, and both of them silently creep away, giving them some much needed private time. Lucy gets lost in the noisy crowd, but they find her at the very end of the carnival, looking up into the sky, utterly mesmerized.

'What is it, Lucy?' Robert asks, and Susan looks up, squinting against the bright sunshine.

A large, colorful hot air balloon drifts in the air, looking very large and intimidating indeed. Susan's eyes widens in wonder; she hasn't seen an actual hot air balloon before. It seems more… real, somehow.

And completely terrifying.

Susan supposes that she has a fear of heights, too. Susan remembers her little elevator episode wryly, and turns her attention back to the hot air balloon. A man with goggles and breeches (Susan hasn't seen anyone wearing breeches in absolutely ages) is manning the hot air balloon, which is weighed down by sacks of something heavy. There is a relatively short line snaking from the hot air balloon. The goggled man immediately comes over when he sees them gawping, smiling crookedly at a business opportunity.

'One pound per ride! Best rate there is!' he informs them in a strong Cockney accent, rearranging his goggles cheerily.

Robert cocks his head a little, and Susan is rather surprised, in a bad way. If they were actually planning on going on the hot air balloon she was staying firmly on sturdy ground.

Lucy tugs on Robert's sleeve, eyes wide and brown. 'Please, Uncle Robert! Please, oh pretty please with sugar on top?'

Susan laughs at the expression and looks at Robert. He sighs theatrically (Susan can tell he's simply pretending), fishes out his wallet and hands two pounds over to the hungry hands of the goggled man. His fingers close around the crisp bills, and he happily tells them to wait in line.

'Robert, never thought that you would be the one to ride on a hot air balloon.' Susan says, half-teasing.

'Oh.' Robert has an expression of mild surprise on his face. 'It's not me that's going on, my dear Susan.'

Susan feels her jaw drop. 'Oh, no. No, no, no…' Susan trails off when she remembers the list she read today. _Do something terrifying. _Susan looks up at the hot air balloon again, barely concealing a sigh. 'I suppose I could.'

Robert grins, and suddenly Susan wonders if he knew all along. 'Excellent. I'll be waiting for you down here. On the ground. Where it's safe and sturdy and my _feet _are on the ground.'

Susan gives Robert a half-hearted smack on his shoulder, her fear growing.

Lucy supplies them with a steady stream of chatter, and Susan grows increasingly petrified as they inch closer to the goggled man. She watches as people after people climb into that flimsy basket joyfully and as they rise up into the air, with only a thin rope anchoring them to the ground.

'Next!' the goggled man calls out, and Lucy runs forward, climbing into the basket first. Susan walks forward much more slowly. Her legs feel like lead as she lifts them up and places them on the basket. Robert helps her in, and as the goggled man shuts the tiny opening in the basket behind Susan she feels rather suffocated. Lucy keeps bouncing around, eagerly awaiting for the hot air balloon to rise up in the air.

'Right.' the goggled man fiddles around with something below the balloon. The blue fire grows bigger, flickering slightly in the wind, and Susan can feel the basket rising. She lets out a yelp, and Lucy grips her hands on the side of the wicker basket, poking her head out of the side.

'Up, up and away!' Robert says loudly, already waving happily.

Susan grips the sides of the wicker basket tightly, and prays for her to live. Her legs feel like jelly, as though they might collapse under her at any moment now.

'Yay! We might even touch some clouds, Mrs. Pevensie!' Lucy squeaks in excitement. To Susan's growing horror, the basket rocked back and forth.

The goggled man removed the heavy sacks, and they rose higher. The wind whipped around Susan's hair, and she forced herself to look downwards. The ground grew increasingly farther away. Robert was still waving, shouting words of encouragement mostly directed at Susan.

To Susan's immense surprise, she finds that she loves being in the air. Her grip on the basket loosens up a little, as Lucy exclaims, 'The wind feels really nice in my hair!'

The booths below look like little toy cars now. Warren is a little bigger than a matchbox, and Susan can see for miles and miles. She looks into the distance, utterly mesmerized. The sky looks magnificent from above, and Lucy reaches out a hand try to touch a cloud.

'Wow.' Lucy sighs in delight.

Susan looks up; and the breeze tosses her hair about, playing with the individual strands. The bright colors of the hot air balloon don't look so menacing anymore, Susan decides. They eventually stop ascending, and drift for quite a while in the sky. Susan feels completely calm and peaceful; looking at the world from above does that to her. Lucy continues to rock the basket, but Susan finds that she doesn't mind nearly as much.

When someone tugs on the rope again, bringing them down, Susan feels rather disappointed. And to think she may never get the chance to sit on one again… Lucy groans too when she feels them descending but Susan is suddenly overcome by jealousy. Lucy would have a chance. She has her whole life mapped out in front of her, whilst Susan frittered hers away.

When they reach the ground, Robert congratulates Susan by holding her hand gently. 'Now, that wasn't so bad, wasn't it?'

Susan shakes her head, smiling softly. 'No, it wasn't.'

The goggled man dips his head respectfully at Susan. 'Have a nice day, ma'am.' he says, before attending to his other eager customers.

Susan still feels rather light and floaty after the pleasant ride.

She feels lighter than she has ever felt in these few years.

--

Susan stumbles home after a long day at the carnival. She chuckles lightly when she recalls a sick Lucy eating far too much cotton candy, that ghastly pink, sticky stuff. When she unlocks her door, still thinking about the hot air balloon, she notices something on the ground. Susan frowns, and picks it up.

When she sees her name on the front of the brown envelope, she smiles, rips it open and starts to read.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Hope you guys enjoyed! Next chapter will be when Susan (probably) will start dying. She has yet to go and visit her loved ones' graves. Oops, did I just give away the plot for the next chapter?

Oh, and to anyone who's interested, please go over to **Ten Little Facts**, a new fic. Ten little known facts about each of the four Pevensies. Please, please read, I'd love it if people gave it more reviews because I think it's one of the best things I've ever written!


	16. Slipping Away

'_Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live our lives.'  
__**Norman Cousins**_

--

Susan stands in front of Mrs. Portman's apartment, clutching a piece of paper in her hand. It is the next day, and for some reason, Susan is feeling extra spent. She feels the creak of her joints as she walks, and her breaths are more labored than usual. She tired easily, and this morning she coughed up a large globule of blood.

Susan doesn't want to admit it to herself; the truth is too terrifying.

She gets the feeling that its _today. _But it couldn't be that soon, could it? There was still a million things she still wanted to do, now that she had gotten a taste of what her life really should have been like. How pitiful; she had only started _really _living at the very end of the road. It wasn't just the end of the road now; Susan was dangling over the edge of a precipice, and the slightest pressure could tip her over, sending Susan into a dark abyss, forever lost.

Susan fleetingly wonders if her death will hurt. Even if it did, it would be nothing compared to the emotional pain she had endured for a large part of her miserable life.

Mrs. Portman doesn't answer her door. Susan feels increasingly light-headed, and she shoves the letter underneath the crack of the door, sure that the old lady she had only recently befriended would find it, and read it. Susan hadn't read the letter; it wasn't hers to read. She saw Marjorie's address by the corner, and immediately resealed it, deciding to send it over to Mrs. Portman.

--

Susan has three hours left to live.

--

Susan knows. She had read an article once. It was a poll, posing the question, 'If you had the chance to know when you were going to die, would you take it?'

Ninety-two percent said no.

Susan would've chosen the latter; she thought that the knowledge would probably give her time to prepare for her passing, an advantage. Now, as she was just mere hours away from her death, she prefers to not know. It comes as an extra burden, she finds. Now, in her apartment, she frets, and paces back and forth, trying to estimate just how much time she had left. She goes with five hours.

Susan tugs out old picture albums out of some unsorted boxes she has not yet opened. They are mostly of her, Nate and Joseph, smiling happily. The first few pages are of Nate and Susan, when they had just fallen in love. A few more pages later, and Susan is pregnant, mostly with her hands resting on her swollen stomach, looking so blissful. Then the next ten are little Joseph, kicking and squalling, mouth turned up in an adoring smile. Then Joseph disappears.

The pictures slowly dwindle as she reaches the very end. The last is of Susan and Nate, both middle-aged and with their hands around each other. Both of them look stiff and strange, as if they would rather not be around each other. This picture hurts so much.

Susan strokes pictures of Joseph, its pages dotted with warm, damp circles of her salty tears.

--

Susan has two hours left to live.

--

She keeps everything in her apartment, making sure its spick and span. Then she panics about The List. She has everything completed, except for the very first thing on her list, _1. Visit their graves._

Susan feels euphoric for a moment; she has completed what she set out to do since two months ago.

Two months.

Has it really been that short amount of time?

She hurries to Lucy's home, heart filling with an extraordinary sense of urgency. There are still some things she has to do.

She reaches their home, and as usual the four of them are there, going about their daily lives. Lucy looks up from her drawing, crayons and coloring pencils littering the dining table as Adam looked on, smiling appraisingly.

'Mrs. Pevensie!' she cries, and as usual she wraps her arms around Susan's girth. Susan's eyes fill with hot tears. She hugs Lucy back, much harder and longer this time. Susan knows it will probably be the last time she gets to receive a welcoming hug from dear little Lucy.

'I love you.' Susan murmurs into her hair, and her exhausted heart clenched painfully. Lucy looks up in surprise, but doesn't question Susan. Katie pops around the kitchen's corner, and smiles benignly, welcoming Susan in.

Should she tell her that she was slowly slipping away?

Susan stands, torn. Robert, who is reading his daily newspaper, frowns at her, clearly sensing that something was out of place. Before Susan can walk a few more steps inside, Adam comes towards Susan quietly, whispering, 'I have something I want to ask you.'

Susan follows uncertainly, and out of the corner of her eye she sees Robert smiling knowingly, and hiding his wrinkled face behind swaths of crackly newspaper. Adam leads her upstairs, and they stand in the hallway.

'I just wanted to ask you a sort of favor…' he mumbles nervously, and he ruffles his hair with his fingers. Susan waits patiently, and Adam finally spits his question out. 'I want to marry Katie.'

All Susan can think of next is that she couldn't be at their wedding.

'That's wonderful, wonderful news.' Susan chokes out, and gives him a hug, trying to convey all her tumultuous emotions to Adam. He hugs her back. 'So… you're agreeing? I mean, I wanted to ask you first because you seem like a surrogate mother to Lucy and Katie and you are really close so… I just wanted to have your assent.' his words tumble out.

'I wholeheartedly agree. I couldn't have chosen anyone better.'

'So, you'll definitely be there? The wedding, I mean.' Adam asks anxiously. 'I know Katie would want you there.'

'Yes, I will.' Susan forces her words out, and hates that she has to lie to what she considers as family.

Adam smiles satisfactorily. Susan descends the stairs, mind in a daze.

--

Susan has one and a half hours left.

--

Susan plays around with Lucy for a while, and she feels lighter, somehow. As in a sense that she feels like she could float away at any moment, never to return.

Lucy chatters about her drawing, and when she is done, she hands it over to Susan, and tells her that it's a drawing of both of them.

'See, that's me, holding your hand.' Lucy points to a smudged figure beside a taller one with white hair. 'And that's you.' both of the stick figures are set against a background of bright green and a great expanse of

Susan kisses the top of Lucy's head, and folds the paper up, promising to herself that she would keep it forever. For as along as her forever would be.

--

Susan has an hour left to live.

--

'I'd better be going now.' Susan stands up from her chair, its legs squeaking noisily on the floor. Robert looks up in surprise, and he looks rather troubled.

Susan gives Robert a large hug first, and a tiny kiss on his whiskery cheek. He seems rather astonished at this, and he hugs her back.

'What's going on?' he whispers, out of Lucy's earshot.

Susan dips her head. Maybe Robert ought to know. She hesitates for a moment, looking for a proper way to phrase this. Then she leans down, and murmurs into his ear, 'I'm dying.'

Robert's eyes widen in shock, but she doesn't question Susan any further, not even to ask if she knew how soon. Susan averts her eyes regretfully.

'Goodbye, Susan.' and Susan knows that he means so much more.

--

Fifty minutes left on earth.

--

Katie is chopping up vegetables in the kitchen, whistling a cheery tune and her hair is tied up in a high ponytail, swinging with every movement she made. She turns around when Susan enters, and she beams brightly.

'Oh, hello Mrs. Pevensie.' she greets, and puts down her chopping knife, wiping her damp hands on the red apron she's wearing.

'Katie.' Susan says, and she inhales deeply. 'Katie, I just wanted to let you know that you're going to be an excellent mother, and you have no idea how much Lucy really loves you. You're doing amazing right now, and you're so blessed to have such a tightly-knit family. Adam is such a lucky guy.' Susan says ruefully.

Katie's jaw drops slightly. 'Thanks.' she says gratefully.

'I have to be going now.' Susan rushes, and Katie smiles. 'But you'll be back tomorrow?'

'Yes.' Susan holds back her flowing tears, and she bids one last goodbye to Katie, with a hug and a kiss. She tries to memorize how warm and fuzzy she feels inside whenever she feels loved. Her heart thumps loudly, as though it was trying to give out as many heartbeats as it could before it would finally come to a complete halt. How odd.

She walks out of the house, and finally she lets her tears flow free. They stream down her face, and every step she takes away from her loved ones send a shoot of pain into her already painful chest.

Time for the last task on her List.

--

Susan has a half-hour left to live.

--

The cemetery is a twenty-minute's cab ride away, in the countryside Professor Digory used to live in. Susan feels increasingly hazy, and her vision sways whenever she blinks.

She stands outside the open, beautifully curling gates of the cemetery. There are words on top of the gates, written in Latin.

_Requiesce in pace._

Susan recognizes the words as 'rest in peace'. She walks through the gates, and her feet crunch on the crisp grass. It is in the late morning now, approaching afternoon. The graveyard looks fresh, unlike what Susan remembers it as. There are some graves with fresh bouquets of flowers, and Susan stares down at her own empty hands, wrinkled with age. The graveyard is mercilessly empty of people, and Susan walks between the stone slabs, feeling oddly peaceful.

She finds them eventually. They are placed in a row of nine, and all look very inviting. She kneels down, her whole body trembling. She can feel presences watching her, even though the whole place is vacant. The first tomb she sees is Edmund's. She strokes the smooth surface of the stone, weathered smooth over the toiling years. Her fingertips tingle after they leave the stone. His name is carved elegantly on the stone, and underneath are meaningless dates.

Susan is finally at peace.

--

Susan has fifteen minutes left to live.

--

She moves on slowly, and she whispers apologies to each one, things she wanted to tell them a long, long time ago. She knows they cannot hear her, but it comforts her immensely anyway. Bit by bit, she remembers Narnia. Her true home. She remembers silken dresses. She remembers bow and arrows. She remembers the feeling of a heavy crown on her braided hair. Narnia's beautiful sunsets, and Her oceans.

When she reaches Lucy's tomb, she breaks down and cries. It is at the very end of the row, and somehow her stone looks friendlier than the others. Susan caresses the stone, and before she knows it, dark wet circles scatter on the stone, dripping from her nose to the gray granite.

It is as though her senses are sharpened when she is nearing the end of her long, hard life. The individual blades of grass beneath her grass feel extra pleasant, as does the gentle breeze upon her face. The sun slowly climbs up to the top of the sky. Susan leans against Lucy's tombstone. A butterfly flutters by, and it rests on Susan's finger, feelers twitching curiously.

Susan's eyelids feel heavier than ever. She fumbles in her pocket, and pulls out The List. Dry tear tracks zig-zag across her face, and she retrieves a pencil. She uses up all of her depleting energy to put a final cross on number 1. Smiling feebly, the pencil drops to the ground, and rolls on the grass, finally resting to a stop.

Susan closes her eyes. Her limbs feel so very relaxed, and her heart swells painfully. She feels herself drifting.

--

Susan has a minute left to live. Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight…

--

Death really wasn't what Susan expected it to be.

She didn't feel any pain, for instance. Instead, her joints were loosening up, and she could feel a lifetime of pain melting away. She lays herself down on the soft grass, and sighs.

That is the last noise Susan will ever make.

Unbeknownst to her, the butterfly lands on the tip of her nose, although she doesn't feel it.

Susan smiles; she can feel the end coming.

Oh, what she would give to return to her family again. To return to Narnia…

--

Twenty, nineteen, eighteen…

--

Susan is nothing more than a mere whisper of a presence now. She feels as though she is barely there, as though she is part of the air now. She can feel herself slowly leaving her tired body, and she floats gently upward, rays of sunshine guiding her on her greatest adventure yet.

--

Three, two, one.

--

Susan Helen Pevensie dies on the seventh of February, at 12.03 in the afternoon, in a graveyard with a butterfly fluttering away from her warm body and the sun beating down on her. Life still goes on. There will be time for a little girl named Lucy to grow up and learn to live, laugh and love, and to have her questions answered when her own end comes.

I cannot tell you what guides us in life, but for Susan, hers was finally lived to the very fullest. She had lived her life again by just telling it to you. But now she knows that life is no more permanent than a wave rising in the ocean. Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may conquer them, all too soon they too bleed into a wash, like watery ink on paper. Mystery still shrouds why we live.

All I know is that when she died, her eyes were closed, but her heart was wide open.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Before anyone asks, there will be two more chapters, so don't you fret. Meanwhile, review!


	17. Remembrance

**12.31 p.m., February 7****th**

Hugh Jordan, groans and grumbles as he pushes open the gates of the cemetery he is tending after. It is time to cut the grass again, it was growing long, and his superiors had nagging at him to shear it for weeks. The sun is particularly hot today, Hugh notices. He pulls out a handkerchief his wife had insisted he bring and wipes his brow carefully. He readjusts his shears, and starts the very corner of the gate, where the grass is longest.

The cemetery isn't very big, about the size of a normal park, but by the time it is nearing one, Hugh is covered in sweat, some dripping off the end of his nose. He pants, and stops to wipe his brow again. He has stuffed the disposed grass in a black plastic bag, which is now bulging.

He slowly makes his way over to the very end of the graveyard, and he is thinking about his soggy sandwich in his left breast pocket he is planning to eat when he sees an old woman sprawled on the grassy ground, eyes closed and a beatific smile on her crinkled face. He frowns, and goes over to wake her up, wondering who on earth would fall asleep in a lonely cemetery.

He shakes the old woman's shoulder, but she doesn't budge. He presses his fingers to her neck, acknowledging that he's being ridiculous and there was no way that this woman could have no pulse.

A few seconds pass.

Very slowly, Hugh takes out his old cell phone from his right breast pocket and begins to dial the ambulance with trembling fingers.

--

**2.18 p.m., February 7****th**

Mrs. Portman stirs awake. She stares at the whiskey bottle in her hand and suddenly a crippling headache hits her straight on. She groans, and the whiskey bottle falls to the floor with a loud clang. Sunlight is shining directly on her feeble face, and she turns. She stares at her front door, breathing heavily

A letter lies on the ground.

Mrs. Portman shuffles over, and picks it up. She stops short when she sees Susan Pevensie's name up front. Why would Susan give Mrs. Portman her own letter? Her clumsy fingers rip the letter open and she reads.

It is from Marjorie Preston.

Mrs. Portman's legs buckle from underneath her and she lands painfully on the hard floor. It is a long and winded letter, one that Mrs. Portman doesn't understand. Her blurry eyes flicker to the address on the top left corner, and a tear splashes wetly on the paper.

She folds the letter up hastily, and puts on her best coat. She rereads the letter, and is mesmerized by her daughter's handwriting. It is very neat and widely spaced. She caresses the words, and stumbles outside in the blazing afternoon sun to hail a taxi.

--

**3.23 p.m., February 7****th**

Jennifer (more commonly known as Jenny to her closest relatives and friends) Friedland was feeling rather bemused. Her partner, Rita, had received a call earlier on and she had told her that, evidently, there was someone dead in a cemetery.

They were carrying the dead body inside the ambulance now, and Jennifer gets a good grip on the stretcher the body was placed on. To Jennifer's mild surprise, she was an old woman, rather kindly looking, at that. A middle-aged old man with a pair of shears by his side was looking rather pale and on the brink of uncontrollable hysterics. It was the usual reaction for anyone who had found the body.

With a loud click, the ambulance doors were shut and Jennifer does the usual things: hook a tube to her body and check her pulse; under her neck, on her wrist. What interested her vaguely was that her body was still rather warm.

She reminds Jennifer of her grandmother.

Shaking her head slightly as Rita fumbles inside, complaining loudly and her coppery red hair crackling with electricity, she resumes her work.

--

**5.56 p.m., February 7****th**

Lucy Rice sits by her window, hugging an old, holey teddy bear her father gave her a few years ago. She still misses him.

Just where was Mrs. Pevensie?

Lucy stares out of the window, as a young man walking a dog passes by. The sky is getting darker, and Lucy remembers that Mrs. Pevensie told her that she would be back soon. But when exactly was 'soon'?

Lucy hated when grown-ups lied to her. But Mrs. Pevensie was more of a surrogate mother. She sighs lightly, and looks down on the pavement. Interest piqued, she sees a smartly dressed man looking very official and a hard hat on his head, arranging his blue suit and rapping on their door. Lucy jumps off her seat, and hurries to tell her mother.

'Mommy! There's a man at our door!'

--

**8.35 p.m., February 7****th**

Robert never would've imagined that his day would end this way.

Katie, Adam and dear Lucy were crowded around the living room, shivering although it wasn't cold and the very presence of death in the air. Katie's eyes are red and swollen, and Adam is rubbing comforting circles on her back, looking as pale as a sheet himself. Lucy is sitting by herself on an armchair, looking rather confused and disoriented. She kept repeating, 'But Mrs. Pevensie's coming back, right, Mummy? Right, Uncle Adam?'

Robert stared at the blank television screen in front of him. He didn't have the heart to tell Lucy, but he supposed that Lucy was the one who deserved to know the most.

'She's not coming back.' Robert utters, and the words weigh heavily on his tongue. Lucy's face crumples for a moment, and she slumps back in the armchair, clearly not wanting to believe him. 'You're telling fibs, aren't you, Uncle Robert?'

Robert shakes his head, and puts his head in his hands.

'Tell me you're lying! Mummy, tell me the truth!' Her voice had risen up a few decibels by now, and Katie bundles her up in her arms, softly caressing her hair and murmuring words of comfort that meant little.

Robert closes his eyes, and lets the grief wash over him.

--

**9.01 p.m., February 7****th**

When Mrs. Portman reaches the address, a few hours away, she stands in front of the house for half-an-hour, torn between the decision to simply walk away and avoid getting hurt again or ring that damned doorbell, and see her long lost daughter again. It didn't matter in the least if she screamed at Mrs. Portman to get out right now, all she wanted was solid proof that her beloved daughters was real, was alive after all these years.

The house is fairly large, and Mrs. Portman cannot help but feel an irrepressible swell of pride for her daughter. At least she chose to go the right way in this world.

Was she married?

Did she have kids?

She takes a deep breath, and presses the gold button on the left side of the wall, and waits for someone--anyone--to answer.

--

**12.45 a.m., February 8****th**

They stayed up all night talking.

Mrs. Portman had never seen so many used tissues in all her life.

She had grown to be a beautiful woman. Then again, she could've been crippled and bald but Mrs. Portman still would've seen the most beautiful woman in the world. She had not changed, her stubborn personality she remembered from all those nights ago persisted. She hadn't wanted to let her come in, at first. A teenager had answered the door.

My grandchild.

Mrs. Portman has her daughter bundled up in her arms now, and her husband thoughtfully moved downstairs for the night. Marjorie, dear Marjorie had married a good man, Mrs. Portman decided.

She told her about her whole life Mrs. Portman had missed. Her schools, her friends (there was one called Lucy Pevensie, but Mrs. Portman supposes it could've been a coincidence that she had the same last name as one of her closest friends), her comings and goings. Mrs. Portman struggled to process it all: she had three children, two of them were in elementary school and one (the one that answered the door) was studying in Hendon House, not far away from here.

She tells her that Marjorie had been trying to look for her all her life too, not even knowing if her true mother was dead or alive.

Mrs. Portman hugs her daughter -- her heart sings to call this young woman her daughter -- and apologizes.

'It's okay, mum.'

The word 'mum' sends Mrs. Portman into senseless hysterics. She's forgotten how warm and fuzzy it made her feel when she was called 'mum'.

--

**9.32 a.m., February 8****th**

Katie feels exceedingly uncomfortable. Mrs. Pevensie's apartment feels alien, too empty, when her late nanny's enigmatic presence was no longer here.

She is struck by how empty it seemed. She never really got to know much about Mrs. Pevensie's past. There were no pictures on the wall, and furniture was sparse. Katie felt rather sad just looking at the apartment. She was here to clear the apartment out, but she suddenly just lost heart.

She rushes out again, deciding to tackle the apartment later. She still had to make funeral arrangements. The officer that came yesterday night told her that they would take care of it, but Katie insisted. No one else would do it but her. It was only right. Mrs. Pevensie had done so much for her.

She wipes the corner of her eyes with an already damp tissue and walks down the stairs, eager to get out of this dank building. When she gets to the last floor, another old woman, even older than Mrs. Pevensie bumps into her.

'Oh dear, I'm terribly sorry.' the woman apologizes, and Katie returns the apology. She is just about to push open the doors of the apartment when the old woman stops her.

'I say -- who were you visiting just now?' she asks curiously.

A lump forms in Katie's throat, and she replies thickly. 'No one. She's dead. Apartment 3B.'

The old woman's eyes widen considerably and she sways dangerously on her frail feet. Katie runs over to steady her, feeling very confused.

'Not-- not Susan Pevensie?' she croaks.

Katie nods, and realizes that she must be her landlady. Tears ball up in her eyes as she realizes how much Susan death must have affected so many people.

'But-- but-- she helped me-- my d-daughter--' she blubbers incoherently, and Katie comforts her, and they both cry for their shared loss, a great and terrible lament for the dead.

--

**2.04 p.m., February 12****th**

Four days later, and Father Coram was late for an appointment. There was a funeral he was supposed to attend and give an eulogy for. A Mrs. Susan Pevensie, if he was correct. He hurries over to the marquee in the cemetery near that old, broken down house that no one lived in anymore. There were already plenty of people there, and he made his way through the crowd, to stand at the very front of the marquee. The casket was ready. The hole was dug.

Father Coram clears his throat, and soon everyone settles onto white chairs that one of the deceased relatives had prepared. A young woman named Katie, or Helena, something of that sort. His memory wasn't as sharp as it was before.

He looks down at the piece of paper on the stand, prepared by the very same woman who had single-handedly taken care of the whole somber event. He read, and the sniffles grew.

There was the woman (Katie? Matie?) up front, already crying fountains. Father Coram could sympathize, he had lost loved ones too. Her young daughter was looking rather pale and disoriented, in a simple dress. A young man (Katie/Matie's husband?) was sitting beside her, dabbing unashamedly at his eyes. Another old man. Another old woman, along with whom Father Coram assumed must be her daughter. There were certain similarities between them. Three children, one of them a teenager.

He finished his service, and turns towards the casket. Two men carefully lower it in the ground, and the wails increases in volume. Katie/Matie's cries are particularly heart-breaking.

Almost everyone attending is crying or expressing their sorrow.

After the glossy wood was lowered into the ground and covered up with dirt, Father Coram thought that this woman, this Susan Pevensie, must've been very loved, indeed.

And he wasn't wrong.

* * *

**Author's Note: **I can't believe I'm finishing this! Last chapter due in a few days! Stay tuned. And same as always: review…?


	18. All Stories Are One

**Author's Note: **Oh, wow. I can hardly believe it's the end. Read on, then.

* * *

Susan awakes in a bus.

Everything is white: the seats, the floor, the top of the bus. Susan blinks, and he realizes that she's wearing nothing but a long, white cloth over her body. She touches the material idly; not really registering everything yet. The material shimmers, and her fingers go right through it. Not cloth, then.

Still in a daze, Susan looks around.

She is sitting ten rows away from the front of the bus, where she assumes the bus driver will be. Strangely enough, there isn't a driver, or anyone else on the bus. Silence fills her ears, and Susan feels rather afraid. The virgin white of everything is blinding her. She blinks again, and looks outside the window.

Her eyes widen when she sees another bus, cruising along. Was she even moving? She looks down from the window, and sees that they are moving along a white road, in a white tunnel, with plenty of white light in front of them. The sheer brightness is hurting Susan's eyes. She takes a closer look at the bus. Contrary to the bus Susan is traveling on, the other bus, directly opposite, is filled with people, mostly Susan's age and the occasional teenager.

Susan frowns, and wonders if she's in a dream.

A faint humming sound comes from the bus, and Susan is rather perplexed. Why was it that she only heard it now?

The silence presses against her ears.

Susan has no idea what to do now. Maybe wait until the bus stops somewhere? The bus had to be going somewhere, didn't it?

Susan stands up, and the material of her dress rustles, the sound horribly alien to her ears. It's as though Susan had just woken up from a hundred-year slumber; everything seems new.

She walks to the very front of the bus, and peers around. There really isn't anyone driving the bus. The drivers seat is empty. Normally, this would've sent shivers running up and down Susan's spine but all Susan feels is confusion.

'Strange, isn't it?'

Susan jumps at the noise, and lets out a loud yell. Her eyes dart back and forth, and presses her back against the sliver of plastic separating the bus seats from the bus driver. She doesn't see anyone around.

'No one seems to be controlling this piece of machinery.' the voice observed.

Susan walked forward warily.

A cat padded out from behind a chair. Susan stared at it as the cat made it's way towards Susan, purring loudly and her long tail waving. Her (Susan preferred to think of the cat as a she) is a beautiful shade of gray, the color of ashes. It seems to shimmer with every movement the cat makes. It's shell-pink ears perk up slightly and her amber eyes observe Susan.

Susan relaxes. It was just a cat. Where did the voice come from, though?

'Susan Pevensie,' the cat meows, licking it's paws and awaiting Susan's response.

Susan's jaw drops.

Her mind whirls. Talking animals. She must be going crazy.

'How queer.' Susan murmurs, almost to herself. She had never dreamt about animals before. In fact, Susan could remember nothing about dreaming. She wasn't even sure if she had slept before. She screws up her eyes, and finds that her mind is a blank, unable to recall anything.

'Do you not remember?' the cat flicks its tail, and looks up at Susan curiously.

In a staggering flash, she remembers everything. Her death. The list. The graveyard. Katie, Lucy, Robert, Adam, Mrs. Portman… everything. She shakes her head slightly, and looks at the cat in a different light.

'You're a Talking animal.' she says, pointing out the obvious, and feeling as though she was very much dreaming. After, this couldn't be happening. And she was in a bus, of all places.

'I'm aware of that.' the cat replied, somewhat amused. The cat had a high, feminine voice.

'What I meant was… you're from Narnia.' Susan says breathily, and eagerly awaited the cat's affirmation.

She simply stares back, blinking her eyes.

Susan tries again.

'Where are you from?'

'It matters not. I could be a product of your imagination. I could simply be an illusion. Perhaps this is all just a dream.' the cat's words mirrored her previous thoughts exactly.

'I don't think you are.' Susan says slowly, and she sits down on the seat closest to her. The cat bounds up beside her, curls into an ashen ball, and waits. For what, Susan has no idea.

'Do you have a name?'

'Patterfoot.' she replies, and she lets out a loud, contented purr when Susan strokes her gently on her silken back.

'I'm dead, aren't I?' Susan asks uncertainly.

'That you are.' Patterfoot nods her assent, ears twitching.

Susan let out a long sigh. 'I can't really believe it.'

They stay like that for a long moment, as the bus rumbled along to their unknown destination. Susan looks to her left again, and see that a great number of people on the other bus are staring at Susan, pointing.

'Why am I the only one on this bus?' Susan wonders out loud. Somehow, she knows Patterfoot would have the answer.

'Your path differs from theirs.' Patterfoot answers her, and stretches, claws glinting.

'Where am I going, then?'

'Someplace else.' Patterfoot says, maddeningly cryptic.

Susan frowns slightly. 'Well, that was a lot of help.'

'Your questions are not mine to answer. You have to see for yourself.'

'Why are you here, then?'

Patterfoot does a very good imitation of a shrug, her furry shoulder blades bobbing. 'Your guess is as good as mine.'

Just as Susan is about to pose her next question, the bus lurches to a stop. Susan jerks forward violently, and she let out a little cry. In an instant, Patterfoot lunges off, and disappears out the open bus doors.

When exactly did they open?

The bus stops moving, but the other bus continues forth. Susan stands up and hastily exits, eager to get away from the mysterious bus. She is now standing in a purely white tunnel. Patterfoot is no where to be found.

Susan lets out a tiny groan, and she turns back to see if she can get back up on the bus. To her surprise, the bus is gone. All she sees is white. When she turns back again, she receives the shock of her life.

The white tunnel in front of her has vanished, and in its place is a large vista of greenery, breathtaking mountains and the faint rushing of a waterfall in the distance. Birds twitter by, and she finds herself standing on a dirt path, leading into the distance. Blue flowers line the path, and a butterfly flutters by. The blue sky winks happily at her, and a breeze tugs at Susan's flowing hair.

She stands there for a long time, heart swelling painfully in her chest when she recognizes the place.

This had to be Narnia.

Susan breathes in, and savors the sweet and delightful smell of fresh, Narnian air. She walks, and she finds that her back doesn't ache anymore, and neither does her feet, or her joints. She touches her face, and the familiar crags of her wrinkles are gone, with smooth skin that wasn't hers in their place. She looks down, and the virgin white, shimmery cloth is replaced with heavy, gold velvet, with red trimmings.

Susan runs to a nearby tinkling river, and looks in, breathing heavily and hardly daring to believe it.

She was young again.

'Go on, then.'

Susan whips her head around, and finds Patterfoot by her side, tongue flickering in and out.

'I'm back!' Susan exclaims, and gave a loud laugh. It felt so good to laugh freely again. Her laughter reverberates in her chest, and her worries melt away. Surely she would see her siblings again…?

'You have to go in.' Patterfoot insists.

'Where?'

'The river.' Patterfoot gestures vaguely with her pink-padded paw. Susan stares blankly at the flowing river, glittering in the bright sunlight.

'You want me to swim?' Susan attempts to make sense of Patterfoot's instructions.

'Get in the river. It'll bring you somewhere.' Patterfoot's eyes twinkled.

Susan obeys, but not without some trepidation. Her mind swirls with confounded thoughts. The water was surprisingly warm. She dips her feet, then her legs, then her waist, and soon her entire body is submerged in the pleasant water, currents tugging at the folds of her dress. Nothing happens.

'Your head, too.' Patterfoot instructs.

Susan dips her head in.

With that, the river rises quickly, engulfing every part of Susan's body. Before she can resurface for another breath, the sounds above disappear, and she is caught in a strong but silent current in the water. She feels her body being washed from his soul, meat from bone, and with it goes all the pain and weariness she holds inside her, every scar, every heartache, every bad memory.

Susan is nothing now, a leaf in the water, and it pulls her gently, through shadow and light, through shades of blue, black, ivory and gray. Susan finally breaks through the surface of the water, and rivulets of liquid run down her face. She emerges in a brilliant light to an unimaginable scene:

Every single living being she had loved in Narnia is standing on top of a hill, seemingly golden in the bright light. There are so many there: centaurs and Fauns, Talking animals and Telmarine kings. Susan steps out of the water, and her dress is immediately dried, as is her hair. She picks up her skirts, and runs upward, heart swelling with unbearable joy; her ecstasy seems to envelop her whole being, until she was nothing more than a sharp ray of golden, pure light, radiating love.

A loud cheer comes from them, and Susan realizes that they are calling her name.

'Queen Susan!'

'Su!'

'Susan!'

Tears spill down her cheeks, but she doesn't feel them. The damp grass stains her bare feet, and she nears the very top of the hill. The cheers grow louder, and Susan makes out three people standing at the very front of the crowd, wearing exquisite garments befitting Kings and Queens.

The cheers fill her ears, and out of the crowd's midst, a great Lion appears. Susan's legs turn to jelly at the very sight of Him. His mane shines in the sun, and emanates gold. His amber eyes blink, and a smile welcomes her back.

Susan makes it to the very top, and by then she is choking back her tears of joy. She wraps her arms around her beloved sister, Queen Lucy. Her eyes shine, and Lucy hugs her back, her grip unimaginably tight as though she would never let Susan go again. Edmund, taller than his brother now, and grins as he gives his elder sister a warm hug, and whispers a 'We've missed you' into Susan's trembling ears. Peter, looking like the same old Pete Susan remembered so well. And all of them were very much alive.

Susan had no time to hug everyone, but she did manage to hug Trumpkin (to Susan's surprise, he hugged her back--Trumpkin wasn't very fond of physical contact in any form), Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, Caspian, Mr. Tumnus and plenty others.

When the cheers and shouts of joy eventually die down, Susan takes her rightful place beside Lucy and Edmund, and the four of them stand in front of Aslan. He blinks at Susan.

'Queen Susan the Gentle,' he rumbles, and Susan can feel it to the very end of her toes.

'Welcome home.'

The cheers erupt again and Susan beams, crying out in sheer happiness as she tries to bask in everything. Aslan lets out an almighty roar, and everything melts into a single word from Him:

_Home._

--

Life went on, back in London. A wedding took place, and it was a very happy affair, indeed. The bride visited Susan's grave every few days, and it wasn't long before she realized that the gravestones she was buried beside also bore the same last name Susan had. Katie didn't ask, but she vaguely knew, now.

Susan's apartment was left untouched for most, mostly because Mrs. Portman couldn't bear to let anyone in. Her life improved vastly since then, she no longer needed the apartment for a living and instead moved in her daughter's house, smiles painting her face everyday as she lived the life she should've had.

Seasons came and seasons went. Years passed, but there will still be plenty of time for a young girl named Lucy Rice to grow up, live, laugh and learn. Her questions will be answered in time, for the moment she remembers Mrs. Pevensie, the kindly old woman who changed her life for the better. She's happy too, and she prays for Mrs. Pevensie, sometimes, that wherever her nanny is, she's happy too.

Lucy Rice will soon grow to learn, as you will, that each affects the other and the other affects the next, that each story and everyone's life is intertwined, no matter how intricately, and the world is full of stories, but all stories are one.

_Fin._


	19. The End

**Author's Note:** Sorry it took such a long time :D

* * *

1. Visit the graves.

2. Sort out the boxes.

3. Get a proper job.

4. Swim again.

5. Find Robert Downley and apologize.

6. Pay the landlord.

7. Learn to shoot again.

8. Listen to Edmund's cassette.

9. Do something terrifying.

10. Watch the sunset.

11. Lucy's last request.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Currently writing yet another Post-TLB Susan fic. Will be out in a few days, maybe tomorrow.


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